Earticle

This paper reviews the literature that has been published since 1980s related to cryogenic refrigeration systems for quantum computing. The reason why such a temperature level of 10-20 mK is necessary for quantum computing is that the superconducting qubit is sensitive to even very small thermal disturbances. The entanglement of the qubits may not be sustained due to thermal fluctuations and mechanical vibrations beyond their thresholds. This phenomenon is referred to as decoherence, and it causes an computation error in operation. For the stable operation of the quantum computer, a low-vibration cryogenic refrigeration system is imperative as an enabling technology. Conventional dilution refrigerators (DR), so called ‘wet’ DR, are precooled by liquid helium, but a more convenient and economical precooling method can be achieved by using a mechanical refrigerator instead of liquid cryogen. These ‘dry’ DRs typically equip pulse-tube refrigerators (PTR) for precooling the DRs around 4 K because of its particular advantage of low vibration characteristic. In this review paper, we have focused on the development status of 4 K PTRs and further potential development issues will be also discussed. A quiet 4 K refrigerator not only serves as an indispensable precooler of DR but also immediately enhances the characteristics of low noise amplifiers (LNA) or other cryo-electronics of various type quantum computers.

European efforts to design superconducting conductors for a future tokamak have involved Nb3Sn cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC). Nb3Sn coils which undergo heat treatment to activate the Nb3Sn material are mostly produced through the wind-thenreact route. However, some Nb3Sn coils have been proposed with CICCs of the react-then-wind route. The latter CICCs are physically constrained due to handling limitations which if not adhered to will result in irrecoverable damage to the Nb3Sn cable inside, nullifying any performance advantage. A group at the Swiss Plasma Center has proposed such CICC designs, constructing samples and testing them for performance. The characteristics and performance of these react & wind (R&W) CICCs are compared with the more common wind & react (W&R) CICCs, and it is found that the R&W designs show more extreme characteristics than typical W&R Nb3Sn CICCs for some parameters that are known to influence CICC performance. Where the R&W CICCs extend the range of those parameters, they also continue trends formed by the W&R CICCs with the parameters. The main observation, however, is that although the current sharing temperature performances of the R&W samples are above the average of the W&R samples they were compared to, they are not the highest. A similar observation applies to a cost comparison of the superconducting material where the R&W CICCs are found to be relatively cheap but not the cheapest. Given these results, clear practical advantages to the R&W CICC design is not evident.

We studied the effect of substrate-induced strain state on the superconducting transition in GdBa2Cu3O7-x (GdBCO)/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) bilayers deposited on a LaAlO3 (LAO) substrate. The stain state of LSMO is controlled by increasing the thickness from 20 nm to 80 nm. Analyses on the extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements reveal difference in the direction of MnO6 octahedral distortion depending on the LSMO thickness, which leads to a difference in anisotropy of magnetization of LSMO layer. The superconducting transitions of our system are strongly correlated with the magnetic anisotropy accompanied by the MnO6 octahedron distortion in a specific direction. This result suggests the possibility of improving the superconducting transition in the GdBCO/LSMO bilayer system by controlling the degree of competition between superconductivity and ferromagnetism via adjusting strain state in the LSMO layer.

A lossless transport of an arbitrary waveform in a frequency range of 106-109 Hz through a conduction channel in a cryogenic temperature is of importance for a high-speed operation of quantum device. However, it is hard to use a commercial oscilloscope to directly detect the waveform travelling in a device located in a cryogenic system. Here, we developed a cryogenic voltage sampling technique by using a Schottky barrier gate prepared on a surface of a GaAs/AlGaAs device, which revealed that an incident rectangle waveform can transport through a 1 mm long two-dimensional conduction channel without waveform deformation up to 20 MHz, while further study is needed to increase the detection frequency.

Urban air mobility (UAM) has recently attracted lots of attention as a solution to urban centralization and global warming. Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) is a concept that emerges as one of the promising and clean technologies for UAM. There are two difficult challenges for eVTOL aircraft to solve. One is how to improve the weight efficiency of aircraft, and the other is how to complete long-range missions for UAM’s flight scenarios. To approach these challenges, we propose a consolidated concept design of battery-fuel cell hybrid tiltrotor aircraft with a liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel tank. The efficiency of a battery-fuel cell hybrid powertrain system on the designed eVTOL aircraft is compared to that of a battery-only powertrain system. This paper shows how much payload can increase and the flight scenario can be improved by hybridizing the battery and fuel cell and presenting a detailed concept of a cryogenic storage tank for LH2.