Superconductor Etch A Sketch

Scientists have a new toy – Etch A Sketch using superconductors.

X-ray beams could be used to write superconducting circuits. Solid lines indicate electrical connections, semicircles are superconducting junctions whose states are indicated by red arrows Credit: UCL

Just like kids draw two dimensional shapes on their Etch A Sketch board, scientists are now able to draw two dimensional shapes using a superconducting pen.

The technique – developed by researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the physics department at Sapienza University in Rome – could lead to a whole new generation of electronic devices.

The team manipulate regions of high temperature superconductivity in a material consisting of oxygen, copper and lanthanum and illuminate it with x-rays. This causes a small scale rearrangement of oxygen atoms, resulting in high-temperature superconductivity – the x-ray beam is then used like a pen to draw two dimensional shapes.

“It is amazing that in a few simple steps, we can now add superconducting ‘intelligence’ directly to a material consisting mainly of the common elements copper and oxygen,” said Professor Antonio Bianconi, team leader from Sapienza.

As well as being able to write minute superconductors, the team can also remove those structures with heat treatment. They now have the tools to write and erase with high precision in a few simple steps without the need for chemicals ordinarily used in device fabrication. This ability to re-arrange the underlying structure of a material has wider applications for similar compounds containing metals and oxygen, from fuel cells to catalysts.

“Our validation of a one-step, chemical-free technique to generate superconductors opens up exciting new possibilities for electronic devices, particularly in re-writing superconducting logic circuits,” said Professor Gabriels Aeppli, director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology, and UCL investigator on the project.

“Of profound importance is the key to solving the notorious ‘travelling salesman problem’ which underlies many of the world’s great computational challenges,” he said. “We want to create computers on demand to solve this problem, with applications from genetics to logistics. A discovery like this means a paradigm shift in computing technology is one step closer.”

Evolution and control of oxygen order in a cuprate superconductor