A Superconducting Diode

[John Clark]

In today's issue of the journal Nature researchers report they have developed a material that is superconducting in one direction but is a normal conductor in the other direction, a superconducting diode, something that had previously been thought to be impossible. They used a 2D layer of a compound made of bromine and niobium (Nb3Br8) that is only a few atoms thick. It only works at liquid helium temperatures, 3.86K or below, but they're currently working on something that works at liquid nitrogen temperatures ,77K, because liquid helium is about as expensive as champagne but liquid nitrogen is about as expensive as milk. But even at the lower temperature this is a big deal.  Mazhar Ali, the chief researcher, is quoted as saying  "Technology that was previously only possible using semiconductors can now potentially be made with superconductors using this building block. This includes faster computers, as in computers with up to terahertz speed, which is 300 to 400 times faster than the computers we are now using."  I'm sure this will also be of enormous interest to those wishing to make a quantum computer.  

The field-free Josephson diode in a van der Waals heterostructure

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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[Brent Meeker]

Terahertz implies wavelengths less than a millimeter.  Computers will have to adopt some kind of asynchronous architecture to take advantage of that.  I wonder if there are any proposed designs for such computers?

Brent

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[Lawrence Crowell]

The distinction between van der Waals force and the Casimir effect is not clear, and both have to do with what might be called quantum atmospheres. I proposed years ago how the Casimir vacuum could be pumped to generate coherent laser-like states. The Josephson-Junction is a soliton result in quantum mechanics. The wave is a solution of the sine-Gordon equation.

LC

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.15809

Realization of the field-free Josephson Diode

Authors: Heng Wu, Yaojia Wang, Yuanfeng Xu, Pranava K. Sivakumar, Chris Pasco, Ulderico Filippozzi, Stuart S. P. Parkin, Yu-Jia Zeng, Tyrel McQueen, Mazhar N. Ali

Abstract: The superconducting analog to the semiconducting diode, the Josephson diode, has long been sought, with multiple avenues to realization proposed by theorists. Exhibiting magnetic-field free, single directional superconductivity with Josephson coupling of the supercurrent across a tunnel barrier, it would serve as the building-block for next-generation superconducting circuit technology. Here we re… ▽ More
Submitted 24 March, 2022; v1 submitted 29 March, 2021; originally announced March 2021.

Comments: 30 pages, 14 figures

Journal ref: Nature 604, 653-656 (2022)