A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has developed a new superconducting diode, a key component in electronic devices, that could help scale up quantum computers for industry use and improve the performance of artificial intelligence systems. Compared to other superconducting diodes, the researchers’ device is more energy efficient; can process multiple electrical signals at a time; and contains a series of gates to control the flow of energy, a feature that has never before been integrated into a superconducting diode. A diode allows current to flow one way but not the other in an electrical circuit. It’s essentially half of a transistor, the main element in computer chips. Diodes are typically made with semiconductors, but researchers are interested in making them with superconductors, which have the ability to transfer energy without losing any power along the way. “We want to make computers more powerful, but there are some hard limits we are going to hit soon with our current materials and fabrication methods,” said Vlad Pribiag, senior author of the paper and an associate professor in the University of Minnesota School of Physics and Astronomy.
Full story : New superconducting diode could improve performance of quantum computers and artificial intelligence.
