Summary
IEICE Information and Communication Technology Forum
2013
Session Number:ELECTR
Session:
Number:ELECTR-1
A Few Applications of Superconducting Digital Electronics
Pascal Febvre,
pp.-
Publication Date:2013-07-20
Online ISSN:2188-5079
Summary:
Superconducting electronics has been used for a long time for niche applications in areas for which no other technology could meet the needs. This was needed to compensate the drawback of cryogenic cooling, often at liquid helium temperature at 4.2K, sometimes at less stringent temperatures like liquid nitrogen temperature at 77K since the discovery of high-Tc superconductivity in 1986. These specific areas include radio-astronomy and also optical astronomy, due to the requirements of receivers with ultimate sensitivity near the quantum limit. This is also the case in magnetometry where Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) are known to be the most sensitive magnetometers, used today in several fields including medicine, solid-state physics, particle physics, non-destructive evaluation or geological prospecting, as just a few examples.