No Arabic abstract
We propose to use graphene-based Josephson junctions (gJjs) to detect single photons in a wide electromagnetic spectrum from visible to radio frequencies. Our approach takes advantage of the exceptionally low electronic heat capacity of monolayer graphene and its constricted thermal conductance to its phonon degrees of freedom. Such a system could provide high sensitivity photon detection required for research areas including quantum information processing and radio-astronomy. As an example, we present our device concepts for gJj single photon detectors in both the microwave and infrared regimes. The dark count rate and intrinsic quantum efficiency are computed based on parameters from a measured gJj, demonstrating feasibility within existing technologies.
Josephson junctions (JJs) are ubiquitous superconducting devices, enabling high sensitivity magnetometers and voltage amplifiers, as well as forming the basis of high performance cryogenic computer and superconducting quantum computers. While JJ performance can be degraded by quasiparticles (QPs) formed from broken Cooper pairs, this phenomenon also opens opportunities to sensitively detect electromagnetic radiation. Here we demonstrate single near-infrared photon detection by coupling photons to the localized surface plasmons of a graphene-based JJ. Using the photon-induced switching statistics of the current-biased JJ, we reveal the critical role of QPs generated by the absorbed photon in the detection mechanism. The photon-sensitive JJ will enable a high-speed, low-power optical interconnect for future JJ-based computing architectures.
Sensitive microwave detectors are critical instruments in radioastronomy, dark matter axion searches, and superconducting quantum information science. The conventional strategy towards higher-sensitivity bolometry is to nanofabricate an ever-smaller device to augment the thermal response. However, this direction is increasingly more difficult to obtain efficient photon coupling and maintain the material properties in a device with a large surface-to-volume ratio. Here we advance this concept to an ultimately thin bolometric sensor based on monolayer graphene. To utilize its minute electronic specific heat and thermal conductivity, we develop a superconductor-graphene-superconductor (SGS) Josephson junction bolometer embedded in a microwave resonator of resonant frequency 7.9 GHz with over 99% coupling efficiency. From the dependence of the Josephson switching current on the operating temperature, charge density, input power, and frequency, we demonstrate a noise equivalent power (NEP) of 7 $times 10^{-19}$ W/Hz$^{1/2}$, corresponding to an energy resolution of one single photon at 32 GHz and reaching the fundamental limit imposed by intrinsic thermal fluctuation at 0.19 K.
Epitaxially grown, high quality semiconductor InSb nanowires are emerging material systems for the development of high performance nanoelectronics and quantum information processing and communication devices, and for the studies of new physical phenomena in solid state systems. Here, we report on measurements of a superconductor-normal conductor-superconductor junction device fabricated from an InSb nanowire with aluminum based superconducting contacts. The measurements show a proximity induced supercurrent flowing through the InSb nanowire segment, with a critical current tunable by a gate, in the current bias configuration and multiple Andreev reflection characteristics in the voltage bias configuration. The temperature dependence and the magnetic field dependence of the critical current and the multiple Andreev reflection characteristics of the junction are also studied. Furthermore, we extract the excess current from the measurements and study its temperature and magnetic field dependences. The successful observation of the superconductivity in the InSb nanowire based Josephson junction device indicates that InSb nanowires provide an excellent material system for creating and observing novel physical phenomena such as Majorana fermions in solid state systems.
One-dimensional Majorana modes are predicated to form in Josephson junctions based on three-dimensional topological insulators (TIs). While observations of supercurrents in Josephson junctions made on bulk-insulating TI samples are recently reported, the Fraunhofer patters observed in such TI-based Josephson junctions, which sometimes present anomalous features, are still not well understood. Here we report our study of highly gate-tunable TI-based Josephson junctions made of one of the most bulk-insulating TI materials, BiSbTeSe2, and Al. The Fermi level can be tuned by gating across the Dirac point, and the high transparency of the Al/BiSbTeSe2 interface is evinced by a high characteristic voltage and multiple Andreev reflections with peak indices reaching 12. Anomalous Fraunhofer patterns with missing lobes were observed in the entire range of gate voltage. We found that, by employing an advanced fitting procedure to use the maximum entropy method in a Monte Carlo algorithm, the anomalous Fraunhofer patterns are explained as a result of inhomogeneous supercurrent distributions on the TI surface in the junction. Besides establishing a highly promising fabrication technology, this work clarifies one of the important open issues regarding TI-based Josephson junctions.
We investigated the low temperature performance of CoFeB/MgO based perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions (pMTJs) by characterizing their quasi-static switching voltage, high speed pulse write error rate and endurance down to 9 K. pMTJ devices exhibited high magnetoresistance (>120%) and reliable (error rate<10-4) bi-directional switching with 2 to 200 ns voltage pulses. The endurance of the devices at 9 K surpassed that at 300 K by three orders of magnitude under the same write conditions, functioning for more than 10^12 cycles with 10 ns write pulses. The critical switching voltage at 9 K was observed to increase by 33% to 93%, depending on pulse duration, compared to that at 350 K. Ferromagnetic resonance and magnetization measurements on blanket pMTJ film stacks suggest that the increased switching voltage is associated with an increase in effective magnetic anisotropy and magnetization of free layer with decreasing temperature. Our work demonstrates that CoFeB/MgO based pMTJs have great potential to enable cryogenic MRAM and that their low temperature magnetization and effective magnetic anisotropy can be further optimized to lower operating power and improve endurance.