1,814 research outputs found
Stability of dynamic coherent states in intrinsic Josephson-junction stacks near internal cavity resonance
Stacks of intrinsic Josephson junctions in the resistive state can by
efficiently synchronized by the internal cavity mode resonantly excited by the
Josephson oscillations. We study the stability of dynamic coherent states near
the resonance with respect to small perturbations. Three states are considered:
the homogeneous and alternating-kink states in zero magnetic field and the
homogeneous state in the magnetic field near the value corresponding to half
flux quantum per junction. We found two possible instabilities related to the
short-scale and long-scale perturbations. The homogeneous state in modulated
junction is typically unstable with respect to the short-scale alternating
phase deformations unless the Josephson current is completely suppressed in one
half of the stack. The kink state is stable with respect to such deformations
and homogeneous state in the magnetic field is only stable within a certain
range of frequencies and fields. Stability with respect to the long-range
deformations is controlled by resonance excitations of fast modes at finite
wave vectors and typically leads to unstable range of the wave-vectors. This
range shrinks with approaching the resonance and increasing the in-plane
dissipation. As a consequence, in finite-height stacks the stability frequency
range near the resonance increases with decreasing the height.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Non-adiabatic Josephson Dynamics in Junctions with in-Gap Quasiparticles
Conventional models of Josephson junction dynamics rely on the absence of low
energy quasiparticle states due to a large superconducting gap. With this
assumption the quasiparticle degrees of freedom become "frozen out" and the
phase difference becomes the only free variable, acting as a fictitious
particle in a local in time Josephson potential related to the adiabatic and
non-dissipative supercurrent across the junction. In this article we develop a
general framework to incorporate the effects of low energy quasiparticles
interacting non-adiabatically with the phase degree of freedom. Such
quasiparticle states exist generically in constriction type junctions with high
transparency channels or resonant states, as well as in junctions of
unconventional superconductors. Furthermore, recent experiments have revealed
the existence of spurious low energy in-gap states in tunnel junctions of
conventional superconductors - a system for which the adiabatic assumption
typically is assumed to hold. We show that the resonant interaction with such
low energy states rather than the Josephson potential defines nonlinear
Josephson dynamics at small amplitudes.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
Phase diagram of geometric d-wave superconductor Josephson junctions
We show that a constriction-type Josephson junction realized by an epitactic
thin film of a d-wave superconductor with an appropriate boundary geometry
exhibits intrinsic phase differences between 0 and pi depending on geometric
parameters and temperature. Based on microscopic Eilenberger theory, we provide
a general derivation of the relation between the change of the free energy of
the junction and the current-phase relation. From the change of the free
energy, we calculate phase diagrams and discuss transitions driven by geometric
parameters and temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures. Phys. Rev. B, accepte
Fluctuations of the Josephson current and electron-electron interactions in superconducting weak links
We derive a microscopic effective action for superconducting contacts with
arbitrary transmission distribution of conducting channels. Provided
fluctuations of the Josephson phase remain sufficiently small our formalism
allows to fully describe fluctuation and interaction effects in such systems.
As compared to the well studied tunneling limit our analysis yields a number of
qualitatively new features which occur due to the presence of subgap Andreev
bound states in the system. We investigate the equilibrium supercurrent noise
and evaluate the electron-electron interaction correction to the Josephson
current across superconducting contacts. At T=0 this correction is found to
vanish for fully transparent contacts indicating the absence of Coulomb effects
in this limit.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Transport and magnetization dynamics in a superconductor/single-molecule magnet/superconductor junction
We study dc-transport and magnetization dynamics in a junction of arbitrary
transparency consisting of two spin-singlet superconducting leads connected via
a single classical spin precessing at the frequency . The presence of
the spin in the junction provides different transmission amplitudes for spin-up
and spin-down quasiparticles as well as a time-dependent spin-flip transmission
term. For a phase biased junction, we show that a steady-state superconducting
charge current flows through the junction and that an out-of-equilibrium
circularly polarized spin current, of frequency , is emitted in the
leads. Detailed understanding of the charge and spin currents is obtained in
the entire parameter range. In the adiabatic regime,
where is the superconducting gap, and for high transparencies of the
junction, a strong suppression of the current takes place around \vp \approx
0 due to an abrupt change in the occupation of the Andreev bound-states. At
higher values of the phase and/or precession frequency, extended
(quasi-particle like) states compete with the bound-states in order to carry
the current. Well below the superconducting transition, these results are shown
to be weakly affected by the back-action of the spin current on the dynamics of
the precessing spin. Indeed, we show that the Gilbert damping due to the
quasi-particle spin current is strongly suppressed at low-temperatures, which
goes along with a shift of the precession frequency due to the condensate. The
results obtained may be of interest for on-going experiments in the field of
molecular spintronics.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures (v3) Minor modifications per referee's comments.
No change in results. (v2) 2 authors added, 1 reference added (Ref. 25), no
change in the text and result
Half-integer Shapiro steps at the 0-pi crossover of a ferromagnetic Josephson junction
We investigate the current-phase relation of S/F/S junctions near the
crossover between the 0 and the pi ground states. We use Nb/CuNi/Nb junctions
where this crossover is driven both by thickness and temperature. For a certain
thickness a non-zero minimum of critical current is observed at the crossover
temperature. We analyze this residual supercurrent by applying a high frequency
excitation and observe the formation of half-integer Shapiro steps. We
attribute these fractional steps to a doubling of the Josephson frequency due
to a sin(2*phi) current-phase relation. This phase dependence is explained by
the splitting of the energy levels in the ferromagnetic exchange field.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Quantum Computational Gates with Radiation Free Couplings
We examine a generic three state mechanism which realizes all fundamental
single and double qubit quantum logic gates operating under the effect of
adiabatically controllable static (radiation free) bias couplings between the
states. At the instant of time that the gate operations are defined the third
level is unoccupied which, in a certain sense, derives analogy with the
recently suggested dissipation free qubit subspaces. The physical
implementation of the mechanism is tentatively suggested in a form of the
Aharonov-Bohm persistent current loop in crossed electric and magnetic fields,
with the output of the loop read out by a (quantum) Hall effect aided
mechanism.Comment: 21 pages including 7 figures, revte
Advances in point-contact spectroscopy: two-band superconductor MgB2 (A review)
Analysis of the point-contact spectroscopy (PCS) data on the new dramatic
high-T superconductor MgB reveals quite different behavior of two
disconnected and electronic bands, deriving from their
anisotropy, different dimensionality, and electron-phonon interaction. PCS
allows direct registration of both the superconducting gaps and
electron-phonon-interaction spectral function of the two-dimensional
and three-dimensional band, establishing correlation between the gap
value and intensity of the high-T driving force -- the boron
vibration mode. PCS data on some nonsuperconducting transition-metal diborides
are surveyed for comparison.Comment: 17 pages, 30 figs., will be published in Low Temp. Phys. V.30 (2004)
N
Coherent current states in mesoscopic four-terminal Josephson junction
A theory is offered for the ballistic 4-terminal Josephson junction. The
studied system consists of a mesoscopic two-dimensional normal rectangular
layer which is attached in each side to the bulk superconducting banks
(terminals). The relation between the currents through the different terminals,
which is valid for arbitrary temperatures and junction sizes, is obtained. The
nonlocal coupling of the supercurrents leads to a new effect, specific for the
mesoscopic weak link between two superconducting rings; an applied magnetic
flux through one of the rings produces a magnetic flux in the other ring even
in the absence of an external flux through the other one. The phase dependent
distributions of the local density of Andreev states, of the supercurrents and
of the induced order parameter are obtained. The "interference pattern" for the
anomalous average inside the two dimensional region can be regulated by the
applied magnetic fluxes or the transport currents. For some values of the phase
differences between the terminals, the current vortex state and the two
dimensional phase slip center are appeared.Comment: 17 pages in Latex and 6 ps Figures. Will be published in Low
Temp.Phy
- …