Granular aluminum nano-superconducting quantum interference device

Abstract

Granular aluminum (grAl) is an applied quantum material. We present nano-superconducting quantum interference devices (nanoSQUIDs) based on grAl thin films. These devices exhibit non-hysteretic behavior, allowing conventional SQUID readout down to temperatures well below the critical temperature as well as detection properties comparable to those of Dayem bridge-based devices of greater complexity. Despite being much longer than the coherence length, the current–phase relation of these grAl constrictions appears to be single valued at least down to half their critical temperature. This suggests that grAl thin films should be described as a network of inter-grain Josephson junctions.