Duality and fluxonics in superconducting devices

Abstract

The concept of electrical duality is reviewed, with a focus on the symmetry between the motion of charge and the motion of magnetic flux. This approach is especially illuminating for the case of a superconductor, in which flux is quantized in units of Φ0=h/2e. In a two-dimensional superconductor, a quantized vortex or fluxon can be viewed as the dual of an electron. Based on this analogy, new superconducting ‘‘fluxonic’’ device concepts are proposed, including optical detectors and transistors. Finally, the implications of this picture for low- and high-temperature superconductors are evaluated.