Highlights

MgB₂ Tunnel Junctions and SQUIDs

Sept. 3, 2007.  (H1)  Recently, Alexander Brinkman (Univ. of Twente) and John Rowell (Arizona State Univ.) have reviewed the advances in the development and understanding of MgB₂ tunnel junctions and SQUIDs in a special issue of Physica C [1]. Within the superconducting electronics community, high quality MgB₂ junctions with suitable tunnel barriers have already been demonstrated based on both oriented and epitaxial thin MgB₂ films. Multiband transport properties, such as the existence of two energy gaps, phonon spectra and anisotropy have been investigated with these junctions. Brinkman and Rowell review the suitability of different barrier materials and recent advances in obtaining reproducible all-MgB₂ Josephson junctions for superconducting electronic circuitry. The development of epitaxial thin films has also led to high-quality multiband MgB₂ SQUIDs and magnetometers that operate at reasonably high temperatures, up to about 38 K. The multiband nature of MgB₂ provides new phenomena such as the Leggett mode. Manipulating the different phases of the condensates could lead to novel MgB₂ devices with phase degrees of freedom.

[1] A. Brinkman and J.M. Rowell, MgB₂ tunnel junctions and SQUIDs, Physica C 456, 188-195 (2007)

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