University of Münster Firsts: High-Temperature Superconductors in Nanowires and Absorption of Single-Photons
Quantum technologies: New insights into superconducting processes
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+ The development of a quantum computer that can solve problems, which classical computers can only solve with great effort or not at all – this is the goal currently being pursued by an ever-growing number of research teams worldwide. The reason: Quantum effects, which originate from the world of the smallest particles and structures, enable many new technological applications.
“On the one hand, our results can contribute to the use of considerably simplified cooling technology in quantum technologies in the future, and on the other hand, they offer us completely new insights into the processes governing superconducting states and their dynamics, which are still not understood,” emphasizes study leader Jun. Prof. Carsten Schuck from the Institute of Physics at Münster University. The results may therefore be relevant for the development of new types of computer technology. The study has been published in the journal “Nature Communications”.
+ Researchers at the University of Münster and Forschungszentrum Jülich now, for the first time, demonstrated what is known as energy quantization in nanowires made of high-temperature superconductors – i. e. superconductors, in which the temperature is elevated below which quantum mechanical effects predominate. The superconducting nanowire then assumes only selected energy states that could be used to encode information. In the high-temperature superconductors, the researchers were also able to observe for the first time the absorption of a single photon, a light particle that serves to transmit information.
+ Further important components for the development of quantum technologies, but potentially also for medical diagnostics, are detectors that can register even single-photons. Carsten Schuck’s research group at Münster University has been working for several years on developing such single-photon detectors based on superconductors. What already works well at low temperatures, scientists all over the world have been trying to achieve with high-temperature superconductors for more than a decade. In the YBCO nanowires used for the study, this attempt has now succeeded for the first time. “Our new findings pave the way for new experimentally verifiable theoretical descriptions and technological developments,” says co-author Martin Wolff from the Schuck research group.
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