Superconductors

News and Updates

Detecting mid-infrared light, one photon at a time

June 1, 2021

For some 30 years, scientists have used superconducting materials to record the tiniest specks of light imaginable — individual photons, or single particles of

Square wood box with multicolored wires arranged in ever-smaller squares inside and three small plastic strips attached in several places.

NIST Sensor Experts Invent Supercool Mini-Thermometer

November 17, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have invented a miniature thermometer with big potential applications, such as

Atomic ‘Swiss Army Knife’ Precisely Measures Materials for Quantum Computers

July 6, 2020

It images single atoms. It maps atomic-scale hills and valleys on metal and insulating surfaces. And it records the flow of current across atom-thin materials

Projects and Programs

Qubits

The Qubits Project develops new geometries for superconducting quantum binary devices as fundamental building blocks for quantum computing.

Measurements of Point-Defect Chemistry in Complex Oxides

All inorganic materials contain point defects in the form of impurities, interstitials, or vacancies. Common imaging techniques fail to capture these defects

Amplifiers

To process quantum information it is important to have amplifiers with wide bandwidth, high dynamic range, and low noise.

Getting from Qubit to Mega-Qubit Quantum Computers with Radio Frequency (RF) Calibrations

Publications

Single-photon detection in the mid-infrared up to 10 micron wavelength using tungsten silicide superconducting nanowire detectors

September 14, 2021

Author(s)

Varun Verma, Adriana Lita, Yao Zhai, Heli C. Vora, Richard Mirin, Sae Woo Nam, Boris Korzh, Alex Walter, Ryan Briggs, Marco Colangelo, Emma Wollman, Andrew Beyer, Jason Allmaras, D. Zhu, Ekkehart Schmidt, A. G. Kozorezov, Matthew Shaw

We developed superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) based on tungsten silicide (WSi) that show saturated internal detection efficiency up to

Superconducting Quantum Metamaterials from Convergence of Soft and Hard Condensed Matter Science

May 16, 2021

Author(s)

Peter A. Beaucage, R. Bruce van Dover, Francis J DiSalvo, Sol M. Gruner, Ulrich Wiesner

Superconducting quantum metamaterials are expected to exhibit a variety of novel properties, but have been a major challenge to prepare as a result of the lack

Absolute energies and emission line shapes of the x-ray lines of lanthanide metals

February 1, 2021

Author(s)

Joseph Fowler, Galen O'Neil, Bradley K. Alpert, Douglas Bennett, Edward V. Denison, William Doriese, Gene Hilton, Lawrence T. Hudson, Young I. Joe, Kelsey Morgan, Daniel Schmidt, Daniel Swetz, Csilla I. Szabo-Foster, Joel Ullom

We use an array of transition-edge sensors, cryogenic microcalorimeters with 4 eV energy resolution, to measure the x-ray emission-line profiles of four

Characterization of a Josephson Junction Comb Generator

October 14, 2020

Author(s)

Akim A. Babenko, Alirio De Jesus Soares Boaventura, Nathan E. Flowers-Jacobs, Justus A. Brevik, Anna E. Fox, Dylan Williams, Zoya Popovic, Paul D. Dresselhaus, Samuel P. Benz

We present a new type of microwave frequency combs with a potentially calculable pulse shape. The device is an array of 1500 Josephson junctions (JJs) connected

Awards

2020 Lee Osheroff Richardson Science Prize - Sheng Ran

Dr Sheng Ran is recognised for his research on unconventional superconductivity and electronic phases, particularly his seminal

R. Joseph Kline Honored with Flemming Award

For his outstanding federal service through interdisciplinary research in the evolution of methods to determine the complex, three