Quantum mechanics and superconductivity are intimately connected on many levels. Quantum mechanics is needed to understand why a metal is a metal. The BCS condensate of Cooper pairs would not exist without quantum mechanics, nor could Cooper pairs tunnel through the barriers of Josephson junctions. The name SQUID is the abbreviation of superconducting quantum interference device. Yet another level of quantumness has been added in the last two decades. It turns out to be possible to design and fabricate superconducting objects that have macroscopic dimensions and properties, but behave as if they are single quantum particles. Amplitude and phase of the superconducting wavefunction act as conjugate quantum variables. Practical devices and circuits make use of Josephson junctions to reach the parameter values that are needed, but there is a clear distinction from the Josephson electronics circuits in the other chapters of this book. The latter may, in this context, well be referred to as being classical.
Quantum mechanics and superconductivity are intimately connected on many levels. Quantum mechanics is needed to understand why a metal is a metal. The BCS condensate of Cooper pairs would not exist without quantum mechanics, nor could Cooper pairs tunnel through the barriers of Josephson junctions. The name SQUID is the abbreviation of superconducting quantum interference device. Yet another level of quantumness has been added in the last two decades. It turns out to be possible to design and fabricate superconducting objects that have macroscopic dimensions and properties, but behave as if they are single quantum particles. Amplitude and phase of the superconducting wavefunction act as conjugate quantum variables. Practical devices and circuits make use of Josephson junctions to reach the parameter values that are needed, but there is a clear distinction from the Josephson electronics circuits in the other chapters of this book. The latter may, in this context, well be referred to as being classical.
Abstract Superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) are made by a superconducting loop interrupted by one or more Josephson junctions. They are described in terms of a macroscopic variable, the magnetic flux, which shows quantum effects such as tunnelling through a potential barrier. Besides making up the source of a quantum state, SQUIDs also provide the instruments necessary for its probing: as a fact, SQUID based magnetometers have a sensitivity approaching the quantum limit. In this paper I will review the working principle of these devices and illustrate the system of SQUIDs realized in my group to test the quantum behavior at a macroscopic level.
It is well known that the electrodynamic properties of SQUIDs (Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices) are obtained by means of the dynamics of the Josephson junctions in these superconducting system (Barone & Paterno, 1982; Likharev, 1986; Clarke & Braginsky, 2004). Due to the intrinsic macroscopic coherence of superconductors, r. f. SQUIDs have been proposed as basic units (qubits) in quantum computing (Bocko et al., 1997). In the realm of quantum computing non-dissipative quantum systems with small (or null) inductance parameter and finite capacitance of the Josephson junctions (JJs) are usually considered (Crankshaw & Orlando, 2001). The mesoscopic non-simply connected classical devices, on the other hand, are generally operated and studied in the overdamped limit with negligible capacitance of the JJs and small (or null) values of the inductance parameter. Nonetheless, r. f. SQUIDs find application in a large variety of fields, from biomedicine to aircraft maintenance (Clarke & Braginsky, 2004), justifying actual scientific interest in them.
As we all know, single microscopic particles such as electrons or atoms do not behave according to the familiar classical (Newtonian) physics which describes the everyday world, but rather according to the prescriptions of quantum mechanics, the outcome is often bizarre and counterintuitive. When a macroscopic number of such particles (say ∼ 10) is assembled under conditions where the effects of quantum mechanics are important, the results can be even more spectacular; they include macroscopic phenomena such as superfluidity and superconductivity, which are completely impossible to explain in classical terms. Most, though not all of these exotic phenomena, are a result of a phenomenon which I shall refer to generically as “quantum condensation,” in which a macroscopic number of particles or pairs of particles—a nonzero fraction of all particles present—occupy a single quantum state; this phenomenon is traditionally referred to as Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) when it occurs in a system of bosons such as liquid He, and as Cooper pairing when it occurs, for pairs of particles, in a system of fermions such as the electrons in a superconducting metal. As a result of quantum condensation, the characteristically quantum-mechanical behavior which we are used to seeing at the level of single electrons is as it were amplified by the cooperation of condensed particles and can manifest itself at the macroscopic level. The present essay is intended as a general introduction to the subject of quantum condensation and its consequences, as manifested in a variety of physical systems. I will try to review the fundamental physical ideas, usually without de-
Abstract Superconducting circuits represent a versatile playground to explore novel quantum phenomena and a platform to realize quantum bits (qubits). Superconducting qubits hinge on the coherent tunneling of Cooper pairs across the insulating barrier of a Josephson junction. This qubit implementation is, however, plagued with the variability of the fabricated junction, along with the need for magnetic tunability of the qubit transition frequency. Alternatively, a dual to the Josephson effect—referred to as quantum phase slips—allows for a coherent coupling of flux states and has been used to build phase-slip qubits. In this paper, we propose coupling flux states of a superconducting ring using a bias voltage. By solving the time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau equations, we demonstrate that the bias voltage locally suppresses the density of Cooper pairs, thereby forming a weak link where phase slips occur. Moreover, we show that a voltage-biased superconducting ring serves as an electrically-controlled magnetic memory. The work presented in this paper is an important step towards realizing electrically-tunable superconducting devices, such as qubits and SQUIDs.
Abstract ‘Quantum matter’ describes how superconductors and superfluids can have properties like those found in the strange quantum world of atoms, electrons, and photons. In quantum theory, properties such as energy cannot have any possible value, but are quantized. Energy comes in discrete lumps. Particles can act like waves, be in more than one place at the same time, and interfere with themselves. The weirdness of quantum theory is captured in the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, where quantum effects occur on the macroscopic scale. This is realized in a superconductor, where magnetic flux is quantized. Brian Josephson proposed an electrical circuit that is the basis for a Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID). These devices are of technological significance as they are used in quantum computing, and to make precise measurements of fundamental physical constants and of magnetic field strengths. SQUIDs are now used in metrology, the science of precise measurements, being the basis for the international standard for the volt, the unit of electrical voltage, and are used in quantum computing.
At low temperature and low damping, the magnetic flux of a rf Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) acts as a macroscopic quantum variable whose dynamic is described by a double well potential. A rf SQUID consists of a superconducting loop interrupted by a thin insulating barrier, known as a Josephson junction. The modified rf SQUID design discussed in this thesis has independent, in situ, controls that allow varying the barrier height between the potential wells and their relative tilt. This high level of control of the potential together with the capability to implement an experimental setup optimized to reduce coupling to external sources of noise, made this system ideal not only for tests of quantum transition at a macroscopic level, but also as a scalable solid state device for quantum computation. A variety of measurements of quantum phenomena are reported in this thesis, including microwave level spectroscopy, coherent oscillations, and macroscopic resonant tunneling (MRT). These measurements are compared with theoretical models to study the possible sources of decoherence in a rf SQUID qubit. The analysis confirmed that the main source of decoherence is not due to coupling to the external environment, but it can be linked to intrinsic low frequency flux noise. Work from many groups over the last several years has shown that the performance of a superconductive qubit is limited by coupling to spurious defects in the materials used for the device fabrication. In this work we analyze the possibility of using the MRT as a tool for future studies of effects of materials and fabrication process in the realization of improved qubits, and we also explore the feasibility for measurements of quantum phenomena that involve fast pulsing of the potential barrier height.