Universal logic circuit for gate-controlled superconductor-based switches operating at liquid-helium temperatures

Abstract

The observation of the gate-controlled supercurrent (GCS) effect in superconducting nanostructures initiated major research efforts toward the realisation of superconducting-based computing architectures. Here we introduce a universal logic circuit that can be a promising superconducting building block of classical hybrid supercomputers. We demonstrate a functionally complete set of logic gates by realising the AND, OR, NOT and COPY gates. The general layout and scalability of our device, combined with recent experiments demonstrating fast switching and small voltage signals, make it a functional candidate in superconducting electronics. Our device enables the realization of all classical logic gates and the half-adder combinational logic circuit using at most three nanowires, each uniquely configured with two side-gate electrodes.