Towards cable-to-cable connectors for flexible thin-film superconducting transmission lines

We describe our initial approach and progress towards a reliable and useful technique to connect multiple flexible superconducting cables using a cable-to-cable connector. The test structure comprises multiple components, including flexible thin-film superconducting cables, a bridging connector, a silicon well chip, and polyimide membranes with Cu pillars. The thin-film superconducting cables used in this work contain 12 parallel Nb lines. A bridging connector which was used to connect two superconducting cables had a stripline structure with 12 parallel superconducting Nb transmission lines with 300 μm pitch among them. A silicon well chip and a polyimide membrane with Cu pillars have been used in the assembly for high-precision micro-mechanical alignment and to apply uniform pressure on the contact points of cables and the bridging connector. DC resistances of signal traces of connected flexible cables were measured at temperature ranging from 293 K to 4.2 K in an evacuated cryogenic environment. We present the details of the design, fabrication, assembly, and test results, which show that this is a promising cable-to-cable connection approach.