No Arabic abstract
In this letter we study the effect of time-reversal symmetric impurities on the Josephson supercurrent through two dimensional helical metals such as on topological insulator surface state. We show that contrary to the usual superconducting-normal metal-superconducting junctions, the suppression of supercurrent in superconducting-helical metal-superconducting junction is mainly due to fluctuations of impurities in the junctions. Our results, which is a condensed matter realization of a part of the MSW effect for neutrinos, shows that the relationship between normal state conductance and critical current of Josephson junctions is significantly modified for Josephson junctions on the surface of topological insulators. We also study the temperature-dependence of supercurrent and present a two fluid model which can explain some of recent experimental results in Josephson junctions on the edge of topological insulators.
Josephson junctions fabricated on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators (TI) show a few unusual properties distinct from conventional Josephson junctions. In these devices, the Josephson coupling and the supercurrent are mediated by helical metal, the two-dimensional surface of the TI. A line junction of this kind is known to support Andreev bound states at zero energy for phase bias pi, and consequently the so-called fractional ac Josephson effect. Motivated by recent experiments on TI-based Josephson junctions, here we describe a convenient algorithm to compute the bound state spectrum and the current-phase relation for junctions with finite length and width. We present analytical results for the bound state spectrum, and discuss the dependence of the current-phase relation on the length and width of the junction, the chemical potential of the helical metal, and temperature. A thorough understanding of the current-phase relation may help in designing topological superconducting qubits and manipulating Majorana fermions.
We study spin-orbital coupling effect on the Josephson current through a superconductor (SC) heterojunction, consisting of two s-wave superconductors and a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) layer between them. The Rashba-type (RSOC) and/or Dresselhaus-type (DSOC) of spin-orbital coupling are considered in the 2DEG region. By using the lattice Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation and the Keldysh formalism, we calculate the DC supercurrent flowing through the junction and find that the critical current $I_c$ exhibits a damped oscillation with both the strength of SOC and the layer length of 2DEG; especially, the strength ratio between RSOC and DSOC can also induce switching between the $0$ state and the $pi$ state of the SC/2DEG/SC junction as well. This $0$-$pi$ transition results from the fact that SOC in a two-dimension system can lead to a pseudo-magnetic effect on the flowing electrons like the effect of a ferromagnet, since the time reversal symmetry of the system has already been broken by two SC leads with different macroscopic phases.
The Josephson current through a 1D quantum wire with Rashba spin-orbit and electron-electron interactions is calculated. We show that the interplay of Rashba and Zeeman interactions gives rise to a supercurrent through the 1D conductor that is anomalous in the sense that it persists in the absence of any phase difference between the two superconducting leads to which it is attached. The electron dispersion asymmetry induced by the Rashba interaction in a Luttinger-liquid wire plays a significant role for poorly transmitting junctions. It is shown that for a weak or moderate electron-electron interaction the spectrum of plasmonic modes confined to the normal part of the junction becomes quasi-random in the presence of dispersion asymmetry.
We analyze the ground state properties of an array of quantum dots connected in series between superconducting electrodes. This system is represented by a finite Hubbard chain coupled at both ends to BCS superconductors. The ground state is obtained using the Lanczos algorithm within a low energy theory in which the bulk superconductors are replaced by effective local pairing potentials. We study the conditions for the inversion of the sign of the Josephson coupling ($pi$-junction behavior) as a function of the model parameters. Results are presented in the form of phase diagrams which provide a direct overall view of the general trends as the size of the system is increased, exhibiting a strong even-odd effect. The analysis of the spin-spin correlation functions and local charges give further insight into the nature of the ground state and how it is transformed by the presence of superconductivity in the leads. Finally we study the scaling of the Josephson current with the system size and relate these results with previous calculations of Josephson transport through a Luttinger liquid.
We study the Josephson current through a ferromagnetic trilayer, both in the diffusive and clean limits. For colinear (parallel or antiparallel) magnetizations in the layers, the Josephson current is small due to short range proximity effect in superconductor/ferromagnet structures. For non colinear magnetizations, we determine the conditions for the Josephson current to be dominated by another contribution originating from long range triplet proximity effect.