Science Daily May 11, 2022
An international team of researchers (Italy, Spain, USA – MIT) has developed the quasi-particle counterpart, a superconducting tunnel diode with zero conductance in only one direction. The direction-selective propagation of the charge was obtained through the broken electron-hole symmetry induced by the spin selection of the ferromagnetic tunnel barrier: a EuS thin film separating a superconducting Al and a normal metal Cu layer. The Cu/EuS/Al tunnel junction achieved a large rectification (up to ∼40%) already for a small voltage bias (∼200 μV) due to the small energy scale of the system. With the help of an analytical theoretical model, they linked the maximum rectification to the spin polarization of the barrier and described the quasi-ideal Shockley-diode behavior of the junction. According to the researchers the cryogenic spintronic rectifier is promising for the application in highly sensitive radiation detection for which two different configurations are evaluated. The superconducting diode may pave the way for future low-dissipation and fast superconducting electronics…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Working principle and characteristics of the superconducting tunnel diode. Credit: Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 2431 (2022)Â