Control of Superconducting Transitions in Nanowires Using Galvanically Uncoupled Gates for Designing Superconductor-Based Electronic Devices

A possibility of contactless switching of an NbN nanowire from superconducting to normal state by passing a current through a gate located at a certain distance from the nanowire is demonstrated. The gate, being isolated from the nanowire by an Al₂O₃ layer, contains an integrated resistance formed by ion irradiation. Dependences of the minimum power released in the gate that is sufficient for nanowire to pass to the normal state on the dc current through the nanowire are experimentally obtained. A signal inverter containing three successive cascades is developed based on this principle. This design shows that the proposed approach can be used to form a logic element base for cryogenic computing.