Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Condensed-matter physics

Vortices and hearts

Nature volume 425, pages 133–136 (2003)Cite this article

A single vortex of flux, formed inside a superconducting Josephson junction, has been detected undergoing quantum tunnelling — a feature that could be developed into a quantum bit.

Vortices are ubiquitous — from the mythical whirlpool of Charybdis in the Strait of Messina, to the putative cosmic strings that were frozen into space-time shortly after the Big Bang. In superconductors, too, swirling currents generate vortices of flux. On page 155 of this issue, Wallraff et al.1 show that a single flux vortex can undergo macroscopic quantum tunnelling2 to escape from a potential well inside a long Josephson junction; they also show that the vortex's energy in the controllable well is quantized. These observations of uniquely quantum phenomena mean that this system becomes another entrant on the growing slate of candidates to make superconducting 'qubits' for quantum computing.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Quantum tunnelling and the single vortex.

References

  1. Wallraff, A. et al. Nature 425, 155–158 (2003).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Caldeira, A. O. & Leggett, A. J. Ann. Phys. 149, 374–456 (1983).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Martinis, J. M., Devoret, M. H. & Clarke, J. Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 1543–1546 (1985).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Rouse, R., Han, S. & Lukens, J. E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1614–1617 (1995).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Martinis, J. M., Nam, S., Aumentado, J. & Urbina, C. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 117901 (2002).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Friedman, J. R., Patel, V., Chen, W., Tolpygo, S. K. & Lukens, J. E. Nature 406, 43–46 (2000).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chiorescu, I., Nakamura, Y., Harmans, C. J. P. M. & Mooij, J. E. Science 299, 1869–1871 (2003).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Nakamura, Y., Pashkin, Yu. A. & Tsai, J. S. Nature 398, 786–789 (1999).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Vion, D. et al. Science 296, 886–889 (2002).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Pashkin, Yu. A. et al. Nature 421, 823–826 (2003).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Berkley, A. J. et al. Science 300, 1548–1550 (2003).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Wallraff, A., Koval, Yu., Levitchev, M., Fistul, M. V. & Ustinov, A. V. J. Low Temp. Phys. 118, 543–553 (2000).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, and the Materials Sciences Division, University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    John Clarke

Authors
  1. John Clarke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Clarke, J. Vortices and hearts. Nature 425, 133–136 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/425133a

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/425133a

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing