David Reilly holds a Ph.D. in quantum device physics and led Microsoft’s quantum research in Australia from 2016 to 2024, where he pioneered scalable methods for controlling and reading out quantum systems. His work on cryogenic electronics has set new benchmarks in the development of quantum and energy-efficient computing technologies.
Shuhei Tamate's current research focuses on scalable circuit design and integration of superconducting qubit devices for building large-scale quantum computers.
In this talk, I will present how quantum technologies can be used in order to probe cosmological signals. I will first present how quantum sensing techniques can be used to probe axion dark matter. I will then show how one can extend these ideas to radioastronomical signals. I will show first proof of principle experiments on 21-cm signals. The extension to the problem of detecting 21-cm signals of the Cosmic Dawn or the Epoch of Reionization in the early Universe will be discussed.
Low temperature X-ray instrument based on large arrays of superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs) microcalorimeters are the key technology for future space-based X-ray observatories such as the ESA-led mission newAthena and are becoming popular in groundbased experiments in the fields of laboratory astrophysics, plasma physics, particle physics and material analysis. Thanks to the sharp superconducting-to-normal transition a TES can detector very small temperature changes at low temperature. TES based X-ray microcalorimeter are non-dispersive spectrometers, which provide an exquisite resolving power (E/ΔE > 3000) over a wideband energy range, from 100 eV up to 15 keV or more, along with almost 100% quantum efficiency, imaging capability and very low background.
A diode is a one-way valve for electrical currents. In the superconducting analogue, supercurrents preferentially flow in one direction along a wire or across a Josephson junction. This non-reciprocal flow, known as the superconducting diode effect (SDE), has been demonstrated in superconducting films, wires and Josephson junctions [1–3], and is attractive for low-dissipation superconducting electronics and as a probe of unconventional superconducting states. The central challenge is to identify what causes the non-reciprocity and to control it. Intrinsic SDEs are expected when both inversion and time-reversal symmetries are broken. For example, through structural asymmetry and spin–orbit coupling in conjunction with a magnetic exchange field in wires and Josephson junctions, which can generate finite-momentum Cooper pairs and direction-dependent de-pairing currents [1–3].
Superconducting spintronics is a highly interesting area of research which allows, for example, for the formation of unconventional superconducting states via proximity induced superconductivity in certain magnetic materials. We have shown that Josephson junctions fabricated from conventional s-wave superconductors that have barriers formed from an intrinsic noncollinear antiferromagnet or from magnetic multilayers designed to have magnetic layers with orthogonal magnetizations show very high supercurrent critical densities that are indicative of the formation of triplet supercurrents. Another highly interesting finding is the observation of a Josephson Diode effect (JDE) in both lateral and vertical Josephson junctions where the barrier is formed from a material that breaks both time reversal symmetry and inversion symmetry. The simplest case is perhaps that of the pure metal platinum that is magnetized at one surface by proximity to an insulating ferromagnet in a direction perpendicular to the supercurrent that is created by niobium electrodes at the opposing surface.
