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Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies

Superconducting nanowires undergoing quantum phase-slips have potential for impact in electronic devices, with a high-accuracy quantum current standard among a possible toolbox of novel components. A key element of developing such technologies is to understand the requirements for, and control the p...

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Autores principales: Constantino, Nicolas G. N., Anwar, Muhammad Shahbaz, Kennedy, Oscar W., Dang, Manyu, Warburton, Paul A., Fenton, Jonathan C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29914174
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano8060442
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author Constantino, Nicolas G. N.
Anwar, Muhammad Shahbaz
Kennedy, Oscar W.
Dang, Manyu
Warburton, Paul A.
Fenton, Jonathan C.
author_facet Constantino, Nicolas G. N.
Anwar, Muhammad Shahbaz
Kennedy, Oscar W.
Dang, Manyu
Warburton, Paul A.
Fenton, Jonathan C.
author_sort Constantino, Nicolas G. N.
collection PubMed
description Superconducting nanowires undergoing quantum phase-slips have potential for impact in electronic devices, with a high-accuracy quantum current standard among a possible toolbox of novel components. A key element of developing such technologies is to understand the requirements for, and control the production of, superconducting nanowires that undergo coherent quantum phase-slips. We present three fabrication technologies, based on using electron-beam lithography or neon focussed ion-beam lithography, for defining narrow superconducting nanowires, and have used these to create nanowires in niobium nitride with widths in the range of 20–250 nm. We present characterisation of the nanowires using DC electrical transport at temperatures down to 300 mK. We demonstrate that a range of different behaviours may be obtained in different nanowires, including bulk-like superconducting properties with critical-current features, the observation of phase-slip centres and the observation of zero conductance below a critical voltage, characteristic of coherent quantum phase-slips. We observe critical voltages up to 5 mV, an order of magnitude larger than other reports to date. The different prominence of quantum phase-slip effects in the various nanowires may be understood as arising from the differing importance of quantum fluctuations. Control of the nanowire properties will pave the way for routine fabrication of coherent quantum phase-slip nanowire devices for technology applications.
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spelling pubmed-60274432018-07-13 Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies Constantino, Nicolas G. N. Anwar, Muhammad Shahbaz Kennedy, Oscar W. Dang, Manyu Warburton, Paul A. Fenton, Jonathan C. Nanomaterials (Basel) Article Superconducting nanowires undergoing quantum phase-slips have potential for impact in electronic devices, with a high-accuracy quantum current standard among a possible toolbox of novel components. A key element of developing such technologies is to understand the requirements for, and control the production of, superconducting nanowires that undergo coherent quantum phase-slips. We present three fabrication technologies, based on using electron-beam lithography or neon focussed ion-beam lithography, for defining narrow superconducting nanowires, and have used these to create nanowires in niobium nitride with widths in the range of 20–250 nm. We present characterisation of the nanowires using DC electrical transport at temperatures down to 300 mK. We demonstrate that a range of different behaviours may be obtained in different nanowires, including bulk-like superconducting properties with critical-current features, the observation of phase-slip centres and the observation of zero conductance below a critical voltage, characteristic of coherent quantum phase-slips. We observe critical voltages up to 5 mV, an order of magnitude larger than other reports to date. The different prominence of quantum phase-slip effects in the various nanowires may be understood as arising from the differing importance of quantum fluctuations. Control of the nanowire properties will pave the way for routine fabrication of coherent quantum phase-slip nanowire devices for technology applications. MDPI 2018-06-16 /pmc/articles/PMC6027443/ /pubmed/29914174 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano8060442 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Constantino, Nicolas G. N.
Anwar, Muhammad Shahbaz
Kennedy, Oscar W.
Dang, Manyu
Warburton, Paul A.
Fenton, Jonathan C.
Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies
title Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies
title_full Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies
title_fullStr Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies
title_full_unstemmed Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies
title_short Emergence of Quantum Phase-Slip Behaviour in Superconducting NbN Nanowires: DC Electrical Transport and Fabrication Technologies
title_sort emergence of quantum phase-slip behaviour in superconducting nbn nanowires: dc electrical transport and fabrication technologies
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29914174
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano8060442
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