The basics
Superconductor
A material that carries current with no resistance, so no energy is lost as heat. Each does it only below some temperature, usually one near absolute zero.
Why superconductor matters
Every use of one starts by cooling it, so the temperature a material needs sets the size, the cost and the power draw of the machine built around it.
Where superconductor comes up
Superconductor in a real conductor
- NbElemental niobium, which has the highest transition temperature of any element at ambient pressure, and the material most superconducting circuits are wired in.
- AlAluminum superconducts at close to the lowest useful temperature on this list, and nearly every superconducting qubit in the world is built from it anyway.
- TiNA hard, chemically stable nitride whose transition temperature can be tuned during deposition, used where a resonator has to be small and quiet.
- NbNA thin film with a high transition temperature for its class and a very short recovery time, which is what a single-photon detector is actually built around.
- NbTiNNiobium nitride with titanium substituted into it, traded for a lower and better-controlled kinetic inductance and a cleaner microwave surface.
Related to superconductor
SuperMatics is a platform infrastructure company for superconducting devices: software that finds the material and the process, lab work that makes and measures it, and pilot manufacturing with industrial partners.If you have a device and a constraint it has to meet, tell us about it.