Hysteretic effects in the dc current-voltage characteristic of normal Nb/Pb tunnel junctions

High resistance normal Nb/Pb tunnel junctions have been studied. Both at 300 K and 77 K an hysteresis in the I–V characteristic has been measured: the presence of negative or positive bias voltages changes the tunneling probability. At every fixed bias current value, a voltage drift with time appears. The drift velocity increases as the voltage or the temperature increases. Moreover at 77 K anomalous low frequency oscillations arise in the junction when some positive or negative threshold voltages are exceeded.