New thin-film Josephson junctions have recently been tested in which the current injected into one of the junction banks governs Josephson phenomena. One thus can continuously manage the phase distribution at the junction by changing the injected cur
rent. A method of calculating the distribution of injected currents is proposed for a half-infinite thin-film strip with source-sink points at arbitrary positions at the film edges. The strip width $W$ is assumed small relative to $Lambda=2lambda^2/d$, $lambda$ is the bulk London penetration depth of the film material, $d$ is the film thickness.
The phase difference between the banks of an edge-type planar Josephson junction crossing the narrow thin-film strip depends on wether or not vortices are present in the junction banks. For a vortex close to the junction this effect has been seen by
Golod, Rydh, and Krasnov, prl {bf 104}, 227003 (2010), who showed that the vortex may turn the junction into $pi$-type. It is shown here that even if the vortex is far away from the junction, it still changes the 0-junction to $pi$-junction when situated close to the strip edges. Within the approximation used, the latter effect is independent of the vortex-junction separation, a manifestation of topology of the vortex phase which extends to macroscopic distances of superconducting coherence.
We study long Josephson junctions with the critical current density alternating along the junction. New equilibrium states, which we call the field synchronized or FS states, are shown to exist if the applied field is from narrow intervals centered a
round equidistant series of resonant fields, $H_m$. The values of $H_m$ are much higher than the flux penetration field, $H_s$. The flux per period of the alternating critical current density, $phi_i$, is fixed for each of the FS states. In the $m$-th FS state the value of $phi_i$ is equal to an integer amount of flux quanta, $phi_i =mphi_0$. Two types of single Josephson vortices carrying fluxes $phi_0$ or/and $phi_0/2$ can exist in the FS states. Specific stepwise resonances in the current-voltage characteristics are caused by periodic motion of these vortices between the edges of the junction.
We treat theoretically Shapiro steps in tunnel Josephson junctions with spatially alternating critical current density. Explicit analytical formulas for the width of the first integer (normal) and half-integer (anomalous) Shapiro steps are derived fo
r short junctions. We develop coarse-graining approach, which describes Shapiro steps in the voltage-current curves of the asymmetric grain boundaries in YBCO thin films and different superconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor Josephson-type heterostructures.
