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.     

Critical magnetic field of cylindrical Josephson junctions

The cylindrical Josephson junction can entirely suppress the interference effects which produce the usual variation of dc Josephson current with magnetic field. This allows the determination of the intrinsic dependence of the Josephson current density upon axial field. For Nb wire-oxide-Sn film junctions we find $\text{I}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>J</mtext>}}\text{=I}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>J</mtext>}}\text{(0) [1?(}\text{B}\text{B}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>S</mtext>}}\text{)}{}^2\text{]}$.     

Magnetic field behavior of resonant current steps in one dimensional arrays of Josephson tunnel junctions

We study the magnetic field behavior of the resonant current steps appearing in one dimensional arrays of Josephson tunnel junctions. The analysis is carried out in the framework of the Kulik theory of resonances in small Josephson junctions, and the theoretical maximum current amplitude of the Fiske steps is computed as a function of the applied magnetic field. Preliminary measurements of the Fiske step current modulations induced by varying the magnetic field is also reported and 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.     

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.     

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.     

Mesoscopic Josephson junctions in the presence of two-mode quantized electromagnetic field

Dynamic behavior of a mesoscopic Josephson junction in the presence of a two-mode quantized electromagnetic field is investigated. It is shown that the currentvoltage- step structures depend apparently on the two basic frequencies of the two-mode field. The voltage jumps are generally not equidistant. It is also shown that for the correlated two-mode squeezed state the time evolution of the supercurrent exhibits quantum collapse and revival(CR) phenomenon, while for the noncorrelated two-mode coherent state the phenomenon does not occur.     

Properties of Josephson junctions in the nonuniform field of ferromagnetic particles

Experimental and theoretical studies of ferromagnet-superconductor hybrid systems consisting of a Josephson junction placed in the nonuniform field of submicron ferromagnetic particles are reviewed.     

External electric field control in the charge qubits including three Josephson junctions

Based on the standard canonical quantization principle, this paper gives the quantization scheme for the charge qubits mesoscopic circuit including three Josephson junctions coupled capacitively. By virtue of the Heisenberg equation, the time evolution of the phase difference operators across the polar plates and the number operators of the Cooper-pairs on the island are investigated and the modification of the Josephson equation is discussed. The time evolution of the phase difference operators is analysed when the Josephson junctions are irradiated by the external electrical field, which is referred to as also the obtainable controlling parameter.     

Macroscopic quantum tunneling induced by a spontaneous field in intrinsic Josephson junctions

We theoretically study macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) in capacitively coupled Josephson junctions in the case that one of the junctions is in the finite voltage state. We find that the system can be mapped into a one dimensional model with a spontaneous periodic perturbation and calculate the MQT rate by using the time-dependent WKB method. Then the MQT rate is found to be resonantly enhanced and the enhancement of MQT rate is found even off the resonant point.     

Fabrication of rhenium Josephson junctions

Rhenium is a superconductor with a relatively weak tendency to oxidize, which is advantageous in superconducting quantum circuit and qubit applications. In this work, Re/A1-A1Ox/Re Josephson tunnel junctions were fabricated using a selective film-etching process similar to that developed in Nb trilayer technology. The Re films had a superconducting transition temperature of 4.8 K and a transition width of 0.2 K. The junctions were found to be highly reproducible using the fabrication process and their characteristics had good quality with a low leakage current and showed a superconducting gap of 0.55 meV.     

Resistively shunted Josephson tunnel junctions

SIS tunnel junctions have externally been shunted by a thin metallic film. It is shown that such devices exhibit radiation induced steps as point contacts or microbridges. This result agrees qualitatively with the commonly used lumped circuit model of Josephson junctions.     

Josephson junctions and circle maps

The return map of a differential equation for the current driven Josephson junction, or the damped driven pendulum, is shown numerically to be a circle map. Phase locking, noise and hysteresis, can thus be understood in a simple and coherent way. The transition to chaos is related to the development of a cubic inflection point. Recent theoretical results on universal behavior at the transition to chaos can readily be checked experimentally by studying I–V characteristics.     

Josephson junctions and dark energy

In a recent paper Beck and Mackey [C. Beck, M.C. Mackey, astro-ph/0603397] argue that the argument we gave in our paper [Ph. Jetzer, N. Straumann, Phys. Lett. B 606 (2005) 77, astro-ph/0411034] to disprove their claim that dark energy can be discovered in the Lab through noise measurements of Josephson junctions is incorrect. In particular, they emphasize that the measured noise spectrum in Josephson junctions is a consequence of the fluctuation dissipation theorem, while our argument was based on equilibrium statistical mechanics. In this note we show that the fluctuation dissipation relation does not depend upon any shift of vacuum (zero-point) energies, and therefore, as already concluded in our previous paper, dark energy has nothing to do with the proposed measurements.     

Terahertz pulse driven Josephson junctions

The voltage response of a Josephson junction to a pulsed terahertz current is evaluated in the limit of a negligible junction capacitance (overdamped limit). The time-dependent superconductor phase difference across the junction is calculated in the framework of the standard resistive shunted junction model by using a perturbative method. The pulsed current bias affects the time average value of the voltage across the junction and current steps are induced in the current–voltage characteristics for voltage values depending on the pulse repetition rate. The current step height is proportional to the square of the pulse time width (τ) to the period (T) ratio. A fast response detector for pulsed Terahertz radiation is proposed, with an expected responsivity of the order of 0.1 V/W and an equivalent noise power of about 3 × 10^?10 W/Hz^1/2.     

Magnetic switches based on Nb-PdFe-Nb Josephson junctions with a magnetically soft ferromagnetic interlayer

The properties of Josephson junctions with a barrier made of a PdFe weakly ferromagnetic alloy with an iron content of about 1 at % have been studied. It has been shown that this alloy is a weak ferromagnet with a Curie temperature of 10–15 K in the required thickness range of 30–50 nm. The effect of the domain structure and magnetic prehistory of the ferromagnetic barrier on the critical current of a junction and the form of the Josephson characteristics has been demonstrated. The application of these junctions as magnetic switches has been proposed.