An electronic device that uses extreme cold to control electrical current without moving parts, working much faster than traditional switches.
From Greek 'kryos' (cold) combined with 'electron,' coined in the 1950s when scientists discovered superconducting materials could switch electricity at cryogenic temperatures.
Cryotrons were briefly the future of computing in the 1960s—IBM invested heavily in them as the next step beyond transistors. They lost the race because they required expensive cooling systems, but their principles laid groundwork for superconducting quantum computers we're building today.
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