tl;dr: I helped design and assemble an apparatus capable of measuring a quantum device’s response to magnetic fields at 4K.

The Story:

During the summer of 2019, I travelled to Grenoble, France. There, I visited the Néel Institute and performed research under the supervision of Dr. Clemens Winkelmann (website, publications) and Dr. Hervé Courtois (website, publications) in their QUEST - QuNES department. Among an international team, I assembled an apparatus which allows for quick experimentation of nanodevices at liquid Helium temperature (4K) in a controllable magnetic field. The nanodevice I studied was a SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device), fabricated in-house by visiting researcher and collaborator Anjan Gupta (website).

Doctoral student Danial Majidi (website, publications) mentored me and showed me the basics of the cryostat dilution fridge that he uses. This homemade “sionludi” fridge is able to cool samples down to 50mK where quantum effects strongly dominate. I learned to transfer liquid Helium to the cryostat in order to keep the dilution refrigerator in operation.

The Results:​

I presented my results from this research experience at the 2019 OSAPS meeting in Flint, MI. You can see the poster here.

The Details:

  • Superconductivity
  • Josephson Junction
  • SQUIDs Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) are small (nano-micro scale) devices that can be used to measure small changes in magnetic fields. The “interference” of superconducting currents can be thought of as a quantum analogue of the double-slit experiment in classical optics.