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FETOPEN “SuperGate” funded with a €3M european project

From March 2021, SQEL is going to start a new research and innovation project SuperGate “Gate Tuneable Superconducting Quantum Electronics”, funded by the European Commission under the HORIZON-2020 FETOPEN program.

The project’s goal is to combine the powerful and energy-efficient superconductor technology with existing semiconductor technology and is based on the path-breaking discovery by the SQEL team that the superconductors can be controlled via electric field effect.

SuperGate is coordinated by the University of Konstanz and, apart from SQEL team institutes CNR-NANO and Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, involves CNR-SPIN, University of Salerno, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (HU), Delft University of Technology (NL), Chalmers University of Technology (SE) and SeeQC (IT).

The ultimate goal of SuperGate is to develop a new outperforming technology for superconducting logics that is completely based on electric field effect. The proposed technology promises a disruptive impact and radical transformations in the long term both in the world of supercomputing and concerning the design of innovative devices for quantum technologies.

Read more at the CNR-NANO press release.

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“Digital Superconducting Quantum Machines” among the winners of “Start Cup Toscana”

Claudio Puglia collects the award for the project DSQM Claudio Puglia collects the award for the project DSQM

“Digital superconducting quantum machines” (DSQM), an innovative project by SQEL researchers, is among the four winning projects of the “Start Cup Toscana 2020” an initiative that rewards the best innovative ideas born in the world of university research.

DSQM is the development of ultra-fast, low-power consumption superconducting circuits. This new frontier of information technology will contribute to the development of supercomputers 100 times faster than current ones. The project was developed by a team composed of Francesco Giazotto, Giorgio De Simoni, Elia Strambini, Federico Paolucci and Claudio Puglia from SQEL, Simone Gasparinetti (University of Chalmers) and Angelo Di Bernardo (University of Konstanz).

The technology of the DSQM project is based on the possibility of modifying the electrical current flowing in a superconductor through the application of an electric field. The team, ranked third in the competition, received a cash prize and the opportunity to participate to the “National Award for Innovation“, along with the other three awarded projects.

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“Gate-Controlled Suspended Titanium Nanobridge Supercurrent Transistor” published on ACS Nano

"Gate-Controlled Suspended Titanium Nanobridge Supercurrent Transistor" published on ACS Nano “Gate-Controlled Suspended Titanium Nanobridge Supercurrent Transistor” published on ACS Nano

Under standard conditions, the electrostatic field-effect is negligible in conventional metals and was expected to be completely ineffective also in superconducting metals. This common belief was recently put under question by a family of experiments that displayed full gate-voltage-induced suppression of critical current in superconducting all-metallic gated nanotransistors.

A new research carried out at the SQEL add an another piece to this intriguing puzzle showing the control of the supercurrent in fully suspended superconducting nanobridges.

The research, published on ACS Nano by M. Rocci and co-authors, allows to take a different perspective compared to previous studies and promise a better understanding of the field effect in superconducting metals, ruling out some of the hypothesis as possible mechanisms driving for the observed phenomenology.

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“Field-Effect Controllable Metallic Josephson Interferometer” published on Nano Letters

“Field-Effect Controllable Metallic Josephson Interferometer” published on Nano Letters “Field-Effect Controllable Metallic Josephson Interferometer” published on Nano Letters

A new research carried out at the SQEL report the realization of a titanium-based monolithic superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) which can be tuned by applying a gate bias to its two Josephson junctions.

The research, published on Nano Letters by F. Paolucci and co-authors, points out the strong implications of the apparent coupling of a static electric field to the macroscopic phase of the superconducting condensate.

Beyond that, this class of quantum interferometers could represent a breakthrough for several applications such as digital electronics, quantum computing, sensitive magnetometry, and single-photon detection.

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SQEL students at NanoQI 2019

SQEL students at NanoQI'19 SQEL students at NanoQI’19

Advances in nanofabrication and the understanding and control of the quantum properties of matter are laying the groundwork for revolutionary new technologies and information processing capabilities. 

Four PhD students (L. Bours, A. Iorio, C. Puglia and F. Vischi) of the SQEL group were admitted to attend the 2019 Nanotechnology meets Quantum Information (NanoQI) summer school in Donostia-San Sebastián (Spain).  

Eight leading experts have been reviewed the experimental and theoretical state-of-the-art for some of the most promising implementations such as semiconductor quantum dots, superconducting circuits, topological insulators and much more.

During the school, our students showcased the research carried out at SQEL in three posters: “Field-effect metallic superconducting electronics” (by C. Puglia), “Field-effect controllable metallic Josephson interferometer” (by F. Vischi) and “Revealing the Spin-Orbit Interaction in InAs nanowires” (by A. Iorio).

  • Group picture at NanoQI’19
  • A. Iorio, F. Vischi and C. Puglia while presenting their posters at NanoQI’19