Phase dynamics of inductively coupled intrinsic Josephson junctions and terahertz electromagnetic radiation

Abstract

The Josephson effects associated with quantum tunneling of Cooper pairs manifest as nonlinear relations between the superconductivity phase difference and the bias current and voltage. Many novel phenomena appear, such as Shapiro steps in dc cuurent-voltage (IV) characteristics of a Josephson junction under microwave shining, which can be used as a voltage standard. Inversely, the Josephson effects provide a unique way to generate high-frequency electromagnetic (EM) radiation by dc bias voltage. The discovery of cuprate high-Tc superconductors accelerated the effort to develop novel source of EM waves based on a stack of atomically dense-packed intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs), since the large superconductivity gap covers the whole terahertz frequency band. Very recently, strong and coherent terahertz radiations have been successfully generated from a mesa structure of $\rm{Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta}}$ single crystal which works both as the source of energy gain and as the cavity for resonance. It is then found theoretically that, due to huge inductive coupling of IJJs produced by the nanometer junction separation and the large London penetration depth of order of $\rm{\mu m}$ of the material, a novel dynamic state is stabilized in the coupled sine-Gordon system, in which $\pm \pi$ kinks in phase differences are developed responding to the standing wave of Josephson plasma and are stacked alternatively in the c-axis. This novel solution of the inductively coupled sine-Gordon equations captures the important features of experimental observations. The theory predicts an optimal radiation power larger than the one available to date by orders of magnitude, and thus suggests the technological relevance of the phenomena.Comment: review article (69 pages, 30 figures