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The Josephson effect produces a supercurrent between two superconductors separated by an insulator, but it also leads to more exotic effects like electric quantum diffraction. Here, the authors show the appearance of Fraunhofer diffraction for thermal currents in a thermally biased Josephson junction.

A thermal analogue of a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID, widely used to measure small magnetic fields) is realized, in which the flow of heat between the superconductors is dependent on the quantum phase difference between them.

The authors report a 1-input-8-ouput superconducting demultiplexer consisting of 14 Al-InAs-Al Josephson Field Effect Transistors, enabling time-division multiplexing of non-dissipative current up to several GHz. This strategy can reduce the number of I/O lines to drive cryogenic electrical devices in quantum applications.

A niobium titanite nitride-based superconducting nanodevice — a Cooper-pair transistor — has a remarkably long parity lifetime, exceeding one minute close to absolute zero.

Electron pumps usually deliver small numbers of electrons by using strong Coulomb blockade to limit their flow under an applied bias. By periodically modulating the wavefunction of the electrons in a hybrid superconducting device, they can be delivered without bias.

While commonly the intrinsic particle–hole symmetry of superconductors prevents their exploitation for thermoelectricity, now a thermoelectric Josephson engine made from superconducting tunnel junctions gives rise to bipolar thermoelectricity and may find wide application in quantum technology.

Superconducting computing promises enhanced computational power, but scalable and fast superconducting memories are still not implemented. Here, the authors demonstrate a superconducting memory cell based on hysteretic phase-slip transition, without degradation up to ~1 K over several days.

A phase battery is a quantum device that provides a persistent phase bias to the wave function of a quantum circuit. A hybrid superconducting and magnetic circuit containing two anomalous Josephson junctions can provide a tunable Josephson phase that persists in the absence of external stimuli.

A superconducting field-effect transistor was demonstrated with a structure made of different Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer superconductors.

The development of superconducting quantum interference devices based on the Josephson effect has led to significant improvements in our ability to measure magnetic fields. A similar device, dubbed the superconducting quantum interference transistor, which exploits the proximity effect, could allow similar significant further improvements.

A superconducting quantum interferometer is exploited to fully control the direction of the coherent component of the electronic heat current flowing through a temperature-biased Josephson junction.

A heat modulator designed to control the phase-coherent component of the thermal current at the nanoscale can be realized with a superconducting quantum interference device.

A thermal diode with two orders of magnitude higher on/off ratio than that previously achieved can be obtained by combining normal metals and superconductors.

An electrical heat engine has been realized at sub-Kelvin temperatures. It consists of a superconducting spin-selective tunnel junction of EuS/Al/AlOx/Co. The efficiency of the engine is quantified for different magnetic configurations.

Physical details of a Josephson junction may drastically modify the properties of supercurrent. Here, the authors observe a colossal enhancement of the critical supercurrent in a Josephson junction subject to a perpendicular magnetic field, indicating topological phase transitions.

Diodes are characterized by mono-directional flow of current, yet this simplicity belies their critical importance in electronics and optics. Here, Strambini et al demonstrate a superconducting quasi-particle equivalent, achieved by the use of a thin ferromagnetic insulator.

Vortices are a feature of both superconductivity and superfluidity and are a governing factor in the performance of superconducting-based technologies. Here, the authors theoretically demonstrate how parameters of the vortex, such as position and winding number, can influence the rectification strength of the superconducting diode effect in Josephson junctions.

Here, the authors consider the superconducting diode effect in the Fraunhofer pattern of planar Josephson junctions and focus on the role of spatial disorder of several kinds in the junction to yield the diode effect.

Topological superconductors are expected to be a key component of quantum computing systems but reliably detecting their exotic properties is a challenge. Here, the authors propose a topological Josephson heat engine which uses thermodynamic effects to probe the 4π-periodic ground state of a topological superconductor.

Heat transport in electronic systems is influenced by nearby superconductors due to the so-called proximity effect. Combining this with the manipulation of superconductivity using magnetic fields enables the control of nanoscale thermal transport.

Multi-terminal superconducting Josephson junctions are used to induce topologically protected transitions between gapless and gapped states, showing the potential for creating artificial topological materials.

Nonreciprocal supercurrent phenomena and the corresponding diode effect in dc SQUIDs based on Josephson junctions with single and multiband superconductors are studied. It is shown that magnetic fields can independently control supercurrent rectification’s amplitude and direction, particularly in superconductors with broken time-reversal symmetry.

The sign of switching currents in supercurrent diodes depends on their flow direction, however effective strategies to control it in single platforms with large efficiency are missing. The authors realise a supercurrent diode in superconducting weak links that is tunable both in amplitude and sign of switching current by an out of-plane magnetic field in a regime without magnetic screening.

Phase-coherent caloritronics is an emerging field of nanoscience based on the possibility to control and manipulate heat currents thanks to the long-range phase coherence of the superconducting condensate

The superconducting diode effect has the potential to advance the design of non-dissipative circuit components yet there are many practical aspects to overcome before reaching the application stage. Here, the authors investigate the non-reciprocal current-voltage relationship in gate-controlled metallic nanowires, demonstrating the realisation of the superconducting diode effect without the need to break time-reversal symmetry using an applied magnetic field.