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Nanotechnology

Reversible diodes for moving quanta

Nanoscale engineering can now take advantage of a new ratchet device: it acts as a diode for superconducting vortices, but its directionality can be controlled and repeatedly reversed to become an effective 'two-way street'.

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Figure 1: The asymmetic landscape of a ratchet.
Figure 2: The vortex diode, in which the direction of the net motion depends on the density of magnetic-flux quanta (vortices), as shown by de Souza Silva and colleagues5.

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Nori, F. Reversible diodes for moving quanta. Nature Phys 2, 227–228 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys262

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