On a separate
silicon chip, they grow a thin, flexible film of
silicon nitride, upon which they deposit the superconductor niobium nitride in a
pattern useful for photon detection.
In the single - atom qubit used by Morello's team, and which Tosi's new design applies, a
silicon chip is covered with a layer of insulating
silicon oxide,
on top of which rests a
pattern of metallic electrodes that operate at temperatures near absolute zero and in the presence of a very strong magnetic field.