No Arabic abstract
Non-Gaussian fluctuations of the electrical current can be detected with a Josephson junction placed on-chip with the noise source. We present preliminary measurements with an NIS junction as a noise source, and a Josephson junction in the thermal escape regime as a noise detector. It is shown that the Josephson junction detects not only the average noise, which manifests itself as an increased effective temperature, but also the noise asymmetry. A theoretical description of the thermal escape of a Josephson junction in presence of noise with a non-zero third cumulant is presented, together with numerical simulations when the noise source is a tunnel junction with Poisson noise. Comparison between experiment and theory is discussed.
In addition to the usual superconducting current, Josephson junctions (JJs) support a phase-dependent conductance related to the retardation effect of tunneling quasi-particles. This introduces a dissipative current with a memory-resistive (memristive) character and thus should also affect the current noise. By means of the microscopic theory of tunnel junctions we compute the complete current autocorrelation function of a Josephson tunnel junction and show that this memristive component gives rise to a non-stationary, phase-dependent noise. As a consequence, dynamic and thermal noise necessarily show a phase dependence otherwise absent in nondissipative JJ models. This phase dependence may be realized experimentally as a hysteresis effect if the unavoidable time averaging of the experimental probe is shorter than the period of the Josephson phase.
We propose to characterize Levy-distributed stochastic fluctuations through the measurement of the average voltage drop across a current-biased Josephson junction. We show that the noise induced switching process in the Josephson washboard potential can be exploited to reveal and characterize Levy fluctuations, also if embedded in a thermal noisy background. The measurement of the average voltage drop as a function of the noise intensity allows to infer the value of the stability index that characterizes Levy-distributed fluctuations. An analytical estimate of the average velocity in the case of a Levy-driven escape process from a metastable state well agrees with the numerical calculation of the average voltage drop across the junction. The best performances are reached at small bias currents and low temperatures, emph{i.e.}, when both thermally activated and quantum tunneling switching processes can be neglected. The effects discussed in this work pave the way toward an effective and reliable method to characterize Levy components eventually present in an unknown noisy signal.
Short ballistic graphene Josephson junctions sustain superconducting current with a non-sinusoidal current-phase relation up to a critical current threshold. The current-phase relation, arising from proximitized superconductivity, is gate-voltage tunable and exhibits peculiar skewness observed in high quality graphene superconductors heterostructures with clean interfaces. These properties make graphene Josephson junctions promising sensitive quantum probes of microscopic fluctuations underlying transport in two-dimensions. We show that the power spectrum of the critical current fluctuations has a characteristic $1/f$ dependence on frequency, $f$, probing two points and higher correlations of carrier density fluctuations of the graphene channel induced by carrier traps in the nearby substrate. Tunability with the Fermi level, close to and far from the charge neutrality point, and temperature dependence of the noise amplitude are clear fingerprints of the underlying material-inherent processes. Our results suggest a roadmap for the analysis of decoherence sources in the implementation of coherent devices by hybrid nanostructures.
We study the effect of a magnetic field on the current-phase relation of a topological Josephson junction formed by connecting two superconductors through the helical edge states of a quantum spin-Hall insulator. We predict that the Zeeman effect along the spin quantization axis of the helical edges results in an anomalous Josephson relation that allows for a supercurrent to flow in the absence of superconducting phase bias. We relate the associated field-tunable phase shift $phi_0$ in the Josephson relation of such a $phi_0$-junction to the existence of a so-called helical superconductivity, which may result from the interplay of the Zeeman effect and spin-orbit coupling. We analyze the dependence of the magneto-supercurrent on the junction length and discuss its observability in suitably designed hybrid structures subject to an in-plane magnetic field.
We have studied low-frequency resistance fluctuations in shadow-evaporated Al/AlOx/Al tunnel junctions. Between 300 K and 5 K the spectral density follows a 1/f-law. Below 5 K, individual defects distort the 1/f-shape of the spectrum. The spectral density decreases linearly with temperature between 150 K and 1 K and saturates below 0.8 K. At 4.2 K, the spectral density is about two orders of magnitude lower than expected from a recent survey [D. J. Van Harlingen et al., Phys. Rev. B 70, 064510 (2004)]. Due to the saturation below 0.8 K the estimated qubit dephasing times at 100 mK are only about two times longer than calculated by Van Harlingen et al.