Design and Development of Traveling Wave Parametric Amplifiers (TKIPA) for Low Noise Applications in Radio Astronomy

This work seeks to investigate the design of Traveling Wave Parametric Amplifiers (TKIPAs) for applications in radio astronomy for microwave wavelengths, operating near the theoretical quantum limit for noise temperature. These devices exploit the nonlinear kinetic inductance properties of the superconductor NbTiN to achieve parametric gain that scales with the length of the device. Designs in both coplanar waveguide and SOI microstrip are presented along with associated fabrication challenges and innovations.