A superconducting thermal switch with ultrahigh impedance for interfacing superconductors to semiconductors
A number of current approaches to quantum and neuromorphic computing use superconductors as the basis of their platform or as a measurement component, and will need to operate at cryogenic temperatures. Semiconductor systems are typically proposed as a top-level control in these architectures, with...
Saved in:
Published in | Nature electronics Vol. 2; no. 10 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
2019
|
Online Access | Get more information |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | A number of current approaches to quantum and neuromorphic computing use superconductors as the basis of their platform or as a measurement component, and will need to operate at cryogenic temperatures. Semiconductor systems are typically proposed as a top-level control in these architectures, with low-temperature passive components and intermediary superconducting electronics acting as the direct interface to the lowest-temperature stages. The architectures, therefore, require a low-power superconductor-semiconductor interface, which is not currently available. Here we report a superconducting switch that is capable of translating low-voltage superconducting inputs directly into semiconductor-compatible (above 1,000 mV) outputs at kelvin-scale temperatures (1K or 4 K). To illustrate the capabilities in interfacing superconductors and semiconductors, we use it to drive a light-emitting diode (LED) in a photonic integrated circuit, generating photons at 1K from a low-voltage input and detecting them with an on-chip superconducting single-photon detector. We also characterize our device's timing response (less than 300 ps turn-on, 15 ns turn-off), output impedance (greater than 1MΩ), and energy requirements (0.18fJ/
m
,3.24mV/nW). |
---|---|
ISSN: | 2520-1131 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41928-019-0300-8 |