No Arabic abstract
In this communication we report studies of d.c current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of ultra thin films of Bi, quench condensed on single crystal sapphire substrates at T = 15K. The hysteretic I-V characteristics are explained using a resistively and capacitively shunted junction (RCSJ) model of Josephson junction arrays. The Josephson coupling energy($E_J$) and the charging energy($E_c$) are calculated for different thickness($d$) values. A low resistance state is found in the low current regime below the critical current, $I_c$. This resistance $R_0$ is found to have a minimum at a particular thickness ($d_c$) value. Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) studies are done on these films. A distinct appearance of a diffuse ring near $d_c$ is observed in the diffraction images, consistent with the recent STM studies(Ekinci and Valles, PRL {bf 82}(1999) 1518). These films show an irreversible annealing when temperature is increased. The annealing temperature ($T_a$) also has a maximum at the same thickness. Althoguh the R$_s$ vs T of quench condensed Bi films suggest that the films are uniform, our results indicate that even in thick films, the order parameter is not fully developed over the complete area of the film. These results are discussed qualitatively.
The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of various MgB2 films have been studied at different magnetic fields parallel to c-axis. At fields mu0H between 0 and 5T, vortex liquid-glass transitions were found in the I-V isotherms. Consistently, the I-V curves measured at different temperatures show a scaling behavior in the framework of quasi-two-dimension (quasi-2D) vortex glass theory. However, at mu0 H >= 5T, a finite dissipation was observed down to the lowest temperature here, T=1.7K, and the I-V isotherms did not scale in terms of any known scaling law, of any dimensionality. We suggest that this may be caused by a mixture of sigma band vortices and pi band quasiparticles. Interestingly, the I-V curves at zero magnetic field can still be scaled according to the quasi-2D vortex glass formalism, indicating an equivalent effect of self-field due to persistent current and applied magnetic field.
A novel way to realize a pi Josephson junction is proposed, based on a weak link in an unconventional d-wave superconductor with appropriately chosen boundary geometry. The critical current of such a junction is calculated from a fully selfconsistent solution of microscopic Eilenberger theory of superconductivity. The results clearly show, that a transition to a pi Josephson junction occurs for both low temperatures and small sizes of the geometry.
We present an experimental investigation of stochastic switching of a bistable Josephson junctions array resonator with a resonance frequency in the GHz range. As the device is in the regime where the anharmonicity is on the order of the linewidth, the bistability appears for a pump strength of only a few photons. We measure the dynamics of the bistability by continuously observing the jumps between the two metastable states, which occur with a rate ranging from a few Hz down to a few mHz. The switching rate strongly depends on the pump strength, readout strength and the temperature, following Kramers law. The interplay between nonlinearity and coupling, in this little explored regime, could provide a new resource for nondemolition measurements, single photon switches or even elements for autonomous quantum error correction.
Interactions between vortices in thin superconducting films are investigated in the crossover (intertype) regime between superconductivity types I and II. We consider two main factors responsible for this crossover: a) changes in the material characteristics of the film and b) variations of the film thickness controlling the effect of the stray magnetic fields outside superconducting sample. The analysis is done within the formalism that combines the perturbation expansion of the microscopic equations to one order beyond the Ginzburg-Landau theory with the leading contribution of the stray fields. It is shown that the latter gives rise to qualitatively different spatial profile and temperature dependence of the vortex interaction potential, as compared to bulk vortex interactions. The resulting interaction is long-range repulsive while exhibiting complex competition of attraction and repulsion at small and intermediate separations of vortices. This explains the appearance of vortex chains reported earlier for superconducting films.
Nickelate films have recently attracted broad attention due to the observation of superconductivity in the infinite layer phase of $Nd_{0.8}Sr_{0.2}NiO_2$ (obtained by reducing Sr doped $NdNiO_3$ films) and their similarity to the cuprates high temperature superconductors. Here we report on the observation of a new type of transport in oxygen poor $Nd_{0.8}Sr_{0.2}NiO_{3-delta}$ films. At high temperatures, variable range hopping is observed while at low temperatures a novel tunneling behavior is found where Josephson-like tunneling junction characteristic with serial resistance is revealed. We attribute this phenomenon to coupling between superconductive (S) surfaces of the grains in our Oxygen poor films via the insulating (I) grain boundaries, which yields SIS junctions in series with the normal (N) resistance of the grains themselves. The similarity of the observed conductance spectra to tunneling junction characteristic with Josephson-like current is striking, and seems to support the existence of superconductivity in our samples.