The experiment-theory collaboration led by the Moodera group at MIT and involving the IFIMAC member – Akashdeep Kamra – together with teams from MIT, IBM Zuerich, and DIPC San Sebastián has resulted in the article “Ubiquitous Superconducting Diode Effect in Superconductor Thin Films” published in Physical Review Letters. It has been highlighted as Editors’ suggestion and featured in the Physics magazine with a Research News article as well as at Phys.org. Extraordinarily, some of the crucial experiments were carried out by two high school students visiting the Moodera lab for the summer.
The flow of electrons in metals underlies electricity thereby forming the foundation of modern technology. Semiconductor devices, such as diodes and transistors, provide the electrical switches that allowing current flow in one direction while forbidding it in the reverse direction. These are at the heart of modern digital logic. The flow of electrical current is accompanied by heating, which forms a major bottleneck for the computing industry. Now, the team demonstrates superconducting diodes which allow nondissipative supercurrent flow, without any heating, in one direction but not in the opposite. The demonstrated design is a simple two-layer system, employs widely available materials, highly scalable to smaller sizes, and ready to be integrated in industrial fabrication facilities. [Full article]
