An empty cavity lifts NbSe2 by 5.4 per cent as NIST widens a photon wire to 0.1 millimetres
A six layer NbSe2 device in a terahertz resonator reached a critical temperature up to 5.4 per cent above the material outside. NIST widened a single photon detector wire to 0.1 millimetres and it still fired.
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An empty cavity lifts the NbSe2 transition by 5.4 per cent
A six layer NbSe2 device sitting inside a terahertz split ring resonator reached a critical temperature up to 5.4 per cent above the same material outside it, with critical current and critical magnetic field also raised near the transition, according to a report in Nature. Groups at the University of Science and Technology of China and Shanghai Jiao Tong University led the work, with Frank Wilczek of MIT among the authors. The cavity holds no photons; the enhancement follows its characteristic frequency and peaks resonantly.[1]
Zeng Changgan shapes vacuum fluctuations with a resonator
Zeng Changgan of the University of Science and Technology of China says vacuum fluctuations in free space are ordinarily too weak to produce observable effects in macroscopic condensed matter. Shaping them with a resonator is the group's response to that weakness. The team says cavity structures and material systems both need further work before the approach carries to other superconductors.[1]
NIST widens the photon wire to 0.1 millimetres
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors normally run about 100 nanometres wide. A NIST group scaled the wire to 0.1 millimetres, more than 100 times wider, by adding superconducting rails that redistribute current across it, and reported the result in Optica. Eli Mueller explains the constraint: a photon's energy has to break superconductivity across the whole width of the wire, which is why width has been the limit. Kristen Parzuchowski says it remains open whether the wide design can match the 98 per cent detection efficiency of the nanoscale version, and that more testing is needed.[2]
