Researchers find a way to form diodes from superconductors

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 […]