Photon Avalanche: How to Catch the Invisible
In photometry (the measurement of light), catching individual microwave photons was long impossible: their energy is on par with the thermal jitter of atoms.
Magnetic Vortex Becomes a Quantum Bit
Magnetic vortices in superconductors, like whirlpools in water, typically scatter energy and quickly vanish due to internal friction — dissipation. This hampers their use in quantum chips. But in a film of tiny aluminum grains, a vortex gets trapped and resembles a whirlpool in a narrow well: it spins either one way or the other.
A Superconducting Bridge Between Worlds
Drop by drop from a faucet, or a steady stream without a single splash. That's roughly what the two regimes of current in a superconducting contact look like. Only here, the role of water is played by Cooper pairs — bound electrons that move without resistance.