Phase diffusion in graphene-based Josephson junctions

We report on graphene-based Josephson junctions with contacts made from lead. The high transition temperature of this superconductor allows us to observe the supercurrent branch at temperatures up to ～2 K, at which point we can detect a small, but nonzero, resistance. We attribute this resistance to the phase diffusion mechanism, which has not been yet identified in graphene. By measuring the resistance as a function of temperature and gate voltage, we can further characterize the nature of the electromagnetic environment and dissipation in our samples.     

Phase escape of current-biased Josephson junctions

Switching current distributions of an Nb/Al--AlO_x/Nb Josephson junction are measured in a temperature range from 25~mK to 800~mK. We analyse the phase escape properties by using the theory of Larkin and Ovchinnikov (LO) which takes discrete energy levels into account. Our results show that the phase escape can be well described by the LO approach for temperatures near and below the crossover from thermal activation to macroscopic quantum tunneling. These results are helpful for further study of macroscopic quantum phenomena in Josephson junctions where discrete energy levels need to be considered.     

Phase synchronization in an array of driven Josephson junctions

We consider an array of N Josephson junctions connected in parallel and explore the condition for chaotic synchronization. It is found that the outer junctions can be synchronized while they remain uncorrelated to the inner ones when an external biasing is applied. The stability of the solution is found out for the outer junctions in the synchronization manifold. Symmetry considerations lead to a situation wherein the inner junctions can synchronize for certain values of the parameter. In the presence of a phase difference between the applied fields, all the junctions exhibit phase synchronization. It is also found that chaotic motion changes to periodic in the presence of phase differences.     

Phase dynamics modeling of parallel stacks of Josephson junctions

The phase dynamics of two parallel connected stacks of intrinsic Josephson junctions (JJs) in high temperature superconductors is numerically investigated. The calculations are based on the system of nonlinear differential equations obtained within the CCJJ + DC model, which allows one to determine the general current-voltage characteristic of the system, as well as each individual stack. The processes with increasing and decreasing base currents are studied. The features in the behavior of the current in each stack of the system due to the switching between the states with rotating and oscillating phases are analyzed.     

Chaos in Josephson junctions

A detailed analysis of the control space characterization of phase locked states and chaotic attractors in Josephson junctions is presented, based on a model that includes both quadratic damping and cosine interference terms. In addition, some novel features of the nonlinear characteristics of the junction like evolution of basin boundaries, bifurcation structure analysis and scaling behaviour of Lyapunov exponent are discussed.     

Stacked Josephson junctions

Long Josephson junctions have for some time been considered as a source of THz radiation. We consider here a stack of Josephson junctions as a model for the anisotropic high temperature superconductors in particular those of the BSCCO family. Solitons (fluxons) moving coherently in such junctions is a possible source for radiation. Analytical computations of the bunched state as well as bunching inducing methods are discussed. A new model for the interpretation of THz radiation experiments is suggested.     

Holographic Josephson junctions

We construct a gravitational dual of a Josephson junction. Calculations on the gravity side reproduce the standard relation between the current across the junction and the phase difference of the condensate. We also study the dependence of the maximum current on the temperature and size of the junction and reproduce familiar results.     

Aspects of dissipation effects in experiments on macroscopic quantum tunnelling in Josephson junctions

Summary The effect of dissipation in experiments on macroscopic quantum tunnelling in Josephson tunnel junctions are discussed. The frequency-dependent, nonlinear dynamic resistance of the junction makes it difficult to understand which effective linear resistance has to be chosen to compare the experimental results with the theory developed in the framework of the RSJ model. Various experiments reported in the literature lead to different conclusions and are presently discussed. Recently obtained experimental results on the thermal regime allow us to propose a new experimental strategy which ultimately should remove any ambiguity on the possibility to observe MQT process in the presence of dissipation in Josephson structures. To speed up publication, the authors have agreed not to receive proofs which have been supervised by the Scientific Committee.     

Equivalent Josephson junctions

The magnetic field dependences of critical current are numerically constructed for a long Josephson junction with a shunt-or resistor-type microscopic inhomogeneities and compared to the critical curve of a junction with exponentially varying width. The numerical results show that it is adequate to replace the distributed inhomogeneity of a long Josephson junction by an inhomogeneity localized at one of its ends, which has certain technological advantages. It is also shown that the critical curves of junctions with exponentially varying width and inhomogeneities localized at the ends are unaffected by the mixed fluxon-antifluxon distributions of the magnetic flow. This fact may explain the improvement of the spectra of microwave radiation noted in the literature.     

Slow-fast dynamics in Josephson junctions

We report on a nontrivial type of slow-fast dynamics in a Josephson junction model externally shunted by a resistor and an inductor. For large values of the shunt inductance the slow manifold is highly folded, and different types of dynamical behavior in the fast variable are possible in dependence on the other parameters of the junction. We discuss how particular features of the dynamics are manifested in the current-voltage characteristics of the shunted junction.Received: 10 March 2003, Published online: 11 August 2003PACS: 05.45.-a Nonlinear dynamics and nonlinear dynamical systems - 85.25.Cp Josephson devices - 74.81.-g Inhomogeneous superconductors and superconducting systems     

Zero field steps in Josephson junctions

A study is made of the d.c. current steps of resonant Josephson tunnel junctions in zero applied magnetic field. The results are in good agreement with the experimental observations. The existence of even-order modes, the cut-off voltage and the temperature-dependent current steps are clearly demonstrated.     

Bloch inductance in small-capacitance Josephson junctions

We show that the electrical impedance of a small-capacitance Josephson junction also includes, in addition to the capacitive term -i/(omega)CB, an inductive term i(omega)LB. Similar to the known Bloch capacitance CB(q), the Bloch inductance LB(q) also depends periodically on the quasicharge, q, and its maximum value achieved at q=e(mod 2e) always exceeds the value of the Josephson inductance of this junction LJ(phi) at fixed phi=0. The effect of the Bloch inductance on the dynamics of a single junction and a one-dimensional array is described.     

Shot-noise-driven escape in hysteretic Josephson junctions

We have measured the influence of shot noise on hysteretic Josephson junctions initially in the macroscopic quantum tunneling regime. The escape threshold current into the resistive state decreases monotonically with increasing average current through the scattering conductor, which is another tunnel junction. Escape is predominantly determined by excitation due to the wideband shot noise. This process is equivalent to thermal activation (TA) over the barrier at effective temperatures up to about 4 times the critical temperature of the superconductor. The presented TA model is in excellent agreement with the experimental results.     

Josephson current in Luttinger liquid-superconductor junctions

We study the Josephson current through a Luttinger liquid in contact with two superconductors. We show that it can be deduced from the Casimir energy in a two-boundary version of the sine-Gordon model. We develop a new thermodynamic Bethe ansatz, which, combined with a subtle analytic continuation procedure, allows us to calculate this energy in closed form, and obtain the complete current-crossover function from the case of complete normal to complete Andreev reflection.     

Dissipative current in SIFS Josephson junctions

We investigate superconductor/insulator/ferromagnet/superconductor (SIFS) tunnel Josephson junctions in the dirty limit, using the quasiclassical theory. We consider the case of a strong tunnel barrier such that the left S layer and the right FS bilayer are decoupled. We calculate quantitatively the density of states (DOS) in the FS bilayer for arbitrary length of the ferromagnetic layer, using a self-consistent numerical method. We compare these results with a known analytical DOS approximation, which is valid when the ferromagnetic layer is long enough. Finally we calculate quantitatively the current–voltage characteristics of a SIFS junction.