No Arabic abstract
A Josephson junction may be driven through a transition where the superconducting condensate favors an odd over an even number of electrons. At this switch in the ground-state fermion parity, an Andreev bound state crosses through the Fermi level, producing a zero-mode that can be probed by a point contact to a grounded metal. We calculate the time-dependent charge transfer between superconductor and metal for a linear sweep through the transition. One single quasiparticle is exchanged with charge $Q$ depending on the coupling energies $gamma_1,gamma_2$ of the metal to the Majorana operators of the zero-mode. For a single-channel point contact, $Q$ equals the electron charge $e$ in the adiabatic limit of slow driving, while in the opposite quenched limit $Q=2esqrt{gamma_1gamma_2}/(gamma_1+gamma_2)$ varies between $0$ and $e$. This provides a method to produce single charge-neutral quasiparticles on demand.
We have measured the current-voltage characteristics of a Josephson junction with tunable Josephson energy $E_J$ embedded in an inductive environment provided by a chain of SQUIDs. Such an environment induces localization of the charge on the junction, which results in an enhancement of the zero-bias resistance of the circuit. We understand this result quantitatively in terms of the Bloch band dynamics of the localized charge. This dynamics is governed by diffusion in the lowest Bloch band of the Josephson junction as well as by Landau-Zener transitions out of the lowest band into the higher bands. In addition, the frequencies corresponding to the self-resonant modes of the SQUID array exceed the Josephson energy $E_J$ of the tunable junction, which results in a renormalization of $E_J$, and, as a consequence, of the effective bandwidth of the lowest Bloch band.
The ac Josephson effect in a ferromagnetic Josephson junction, which is composed of two superconductors separated by a ferromagnetic metal (FM), is studied by a tunneling Hamiltonian and Greens function method. We obtain two types of superconducting phase dependent current, i.e., Josephson current and quasiparticle-pair-interference current (QPIC). These currents change their signs with thickness of the FM layer due to the 0-$pi$ transition characteristic to the ferromagnetic Josephson junction. As a function of applied voltage, the Josephson critical current shows a logarithmic divergence called the Riedel peak at the gap voltage, while the QPIC shows a discontinuous jump. The Riedel peak reverses due to the 0-$pi$ transition and disappears near the 0-$pi$ transition point. The discontinuous jump in the QPIC also represents similar behaviors to the Riedel peak. These results are in contrast to the conventional ones.
The fractional Josephson effect is known to be a characteristic phenomenon of topological Josephson junctions hosting Majorana zero modes (MZMs), where the Josephson current has a $4pi$ (rather than a $2pi$) periodicity in the phase difference between the two topological superconductors. We introduce a one-dimensional model of a topological superconductor/normal-metal/superconductor (SNS) junction with the normal-metal (N) region of finite length, which is intermediate regime between the short- and long-junction limits. Assuming weak tunneling at the SN interfaces, we investigate resonance and finite-size effects on the fractional Josephson effect due to the existence of several discrete energy levels in the N region in which wavefunctions have oscillating nodal structure. Through careful analysis of the sign change in the transmission amplitudes through the junction and the fermion parity of the two MZMs, we find that the fractional Josephson current is proportional to the parity of total fermion numbers including both filled normal levels and two MZMs. Furthermore, we elucidate drastic enhancement of the Josephson current due to the resonance between a discrete level in the N region and MZMs.
We consider a combined nanomechanical-supercondcuting device that allows the Cooper pair tunneling to interfere with the mechanical motion of the middle superconducting island. Coupling of mechanical oscillations of a superconducting island between two superconducting leads to the electronic tunneling generate a supercurrent which is modulated by the oscillatory motion of the island. This coupling produces alternating finite and vanishing supercurrent as function of the superconducting phases. Current peaks are sensitive to the superconducting phase shifts relative to each other. The proposed device may be used to study the nanoelectromechanical coupling in case of superconducting electronics.
We consider a superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator where the central conductor is interrupted by a series of uniformly spaced Josephson junctions. The device forms an extended medium that is optically nonlinear on the single photon level with normal modes that inherit the full nonlinearity of the junctions but are nonetheless accessible via the resonator ports. For specific plasma frequencies of the junctions a set of normal modes clusters in a narrow band and eventually become entirely degenerate. Upon increasing the intensity of a red detuned drive on these modes, we observe a sharp and synchronized switching from low occupation quantum states to high occupation classical fields, accompanied by a pronounced jump from low to high output intensity.