High-temperature superconductor quantum flux parametron for energy efficient logic

We report the fabrication and measurement of quantum flux parametron logic from high-transition-temperature Josephson junctions operating at 25 K, above the temperature of liquid helium. The circuits are written directly into the plane of a single-layer thin film of YBa2Cu3O7 using a focused helium ion beam. A single-cell quantum flux parametron was constructed and correct logic operation was verified by using an on-chip superconducting quantum interference device for readout. A three-cell shift register was also fabricated and tested using a three-phase clock cycle. We estimate the average bit energy to be about 1×10−20 J at 1 GHz.