From March 2021, CNR-NANO and CNR-SPIN Institutes will be starting the collaborative research and innovation project SuperGate “Gate Tuneable Superconducting Quantum Electronics”, funded by the European Commission under the HORIZON-2020 FETOPEN program. The project’s goal is to combine the powerful and energy-efficient superconductor technology with existing semiconductor technology, and is based on a fundamental discovery by Francesco Giazotto’s research team.

SuperGate is coordinated by the University of Konstanz and, apart from NANO and SPIN in collaboration with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and University of Salerno, involves Budapest University of Technology and Economics (HU), Delft University of Technology (NL), Chalmers University of Technology (SE) and SeeQC (IT).

The interplay of electricity and superconductivity is a fundamental problem that stands out for its general relevance, the great impact it can have for accessing, controlling or driving new phases of quantum matter, and the enticing perspectives for the development of future emergent technologies especially in the realm of quantum technologies.

SuperGate project has its roots in the path-breaking discovery that the superconducting state can be controlled via electric field effect (https://goo.gl/33214c), relized by Cnr Nano SQEL group led by Francesco Giazotto. They managed to demonstrate that superconductivity in a weak link can be controlled by applying voltages to electrostatic gates, in a similar way as semiconducting transistors are controlled by the field effect. This discovery has the potential to revolutionize the world of supercomputing, leading to a technology that would combine the advantages offered by semiconductors and superconductors.

Starting from this fundamental result SuperGate aims at (i) understanding the origin and the mechanisms controlling the FE, (ii) determining the best superconducting materials and geometry for technical applications, (iii) testing and developing logic circuits based on such devices. The ultimate goal of SuperGate is to develop a new outperforming technology for superconducting logics that is completely based on electric field effect.

The SQEL group at Cnr Nano will be contributing to all the research objectives (i, ii, iii). “The proposed technology promises a disruptive impact and radical transformations in the long term both in the world of supercomputing and concerning the design of innovative devices for quantum technologies” says group leader Francesco Giazotto, based at the NEST Laboratory within Scuola Normale Superiore.

“The ultimate aim of the project is to design high-performance superconducting circuits that can be operated as if they were based on semiconductor technologies – and thus combine the advantages of both systems”, underlines Elke Scheer from the University of Konstanz team that coordinatesthe project. Project details here