Carbon nanotubes in DC and microwave superconducting circuits

Thesis

This thesis presents an effort towards integration of superconductor-contacted carbon nanotubes into microwave circuits, as a new tool for building quantum circuits. Carbon nanotubes show a wealth of quantum phenomena demonstrated in transport experiments by different groups in the last two decades. With the development of circuit QED, one can study these phenomena using on-chip microwave circuits. Moreover, in superconductor-contacted nanotubes, Andreev reflection of the particles at the interfaces leads to the formation of Andreev bound states. A pair of such states can potentially serve as a new type of a qubit.

Here, fabrication and measurement techniques of superconductor contacted carbon nanotubes and superconductor/normal metal bilayer microwave circuits is developed, and their behaviour is studied.

In superconductor-contacted nanotubes the full range of contact transparencies is investigated, showing different transport phenomena such as Coulomb blockade, Kondo effect and Fabry-Pérot interference. In addition, the interplay of these effects with multiple Andreev reflection phenomena and the superconducting proximityinduced non-dissipative current transport through the nanotube is studied.

The proximity effect is studied using microwave resonators made of superconductor/ normal metal bilayers. Characteristic parameters of the bilayers, such as the critical temperature and the magnetic penetration depth are reliably extracted from the measurements.

Finally, the two experiments are brought together in the first step towards using superconductor-contacted nanotubes in quantum microwave circuits. The successful realization of such circuit is achieved, where the Coulomb blockade in a nanotube quantum dot is probed with a microwave field.

Authors: Nersisyan, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-ke1kox7x6
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Keywords: Condensed Matter
• Subjects: Physics