Coherent caloritronics in josephson-based nanocircuits

We describe here the first experimental realization of a heat interferometer, thermal counterpart of the well-known superconducting quantum interference device. These findings demonstrate, in the first place, the existence of phase-dependent heat transport in Josephson-based superconducting circuits and, in the second place, open the way to novel ways of mastering heat at the nanoscale. Combining the use of external magnetic fields for phase biasing and different Josephson junction architectures we show here that a number of heat interference patterns can be obtained. The experimental realization of these architectures, besides being relevant from a fundamental physics point of view, might find important technological application as building blocks of phase-coherent quantum thermal circuits. In particular, the performance of two different heat rectifying devices is analyzed. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.