Switchable phase diffusion in intrinsic Josephson junction arrays

Abstract

We report current-voltage measurements on arrays of high-Tc intrinsic Josephson junctions showing a temperature dependence of the first critical current which is different from that of subsequent critical currents for an array with sub-micron dimensions. This can be explained by the change in the impedance seen by other array-junctions once one junction switches out of the supercurrent state, resulting in a switching-off of thermally activated phase-diffusion.

RF-Current Effects on Intrinsic Josephson Junctions

“…This accounts for our observation that the microwave-induced Josephson vortex-flow branch can only be observed when all the junctions are in the superconducting state; since the microwave field couples poorly when a single junction is in the voltage state, no Josephson vortices are inserted in the junction stack. In our previous work [11] we have seen that thermally activated phase diffusion occurs only on the supercurrent branch and not on the quasiparticle branches. Phase diffusion can only be observed in hysteretic Josephson junctions when the junction resistance is larger than the RF impedance of the environment which is of order 100 [12].…”

High-resolution electron microscopy and electron diffraction of perovskite-type superconducting copper oxides

“…Understanding of interface and surface structures is important for application of the superconductors to electronic devices such as Josephson junction and superconducting transistor [118][119][120][121][122], as illustrated in Figure 30A and B, respectively. Recently, the surface structure has been widely studied with scanning tunneling microscopy in the atomic scale.…”