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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

π -phase jump of magnetic-field dependence of retrapping current in dc SQUID’s

Shiro Saito, Hirotaka Tanaka, H. Nakano, Masahito Ueda, Hideaki Takayanagi

Published Oct 29, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We measured the retrapping current of a small-capacitance underdamped dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) at low temperatures as a function of magnetic field. We found that the relative phase relation between the magnetic-field dependence of the retrapping current and that of the switching current jumped from 0 to $\ensuremath{\pi}$ at ${E}_{\mathrm{J}}\ensuremath{\sim}{E}_{\mathrm{C}},$ where ${E}_{\mathrm{J}}$ and ${E}_{\mathrm{C}}$ are the Josephson energy and the charging energy of a Cooper pair. This phenomenon cannot be reproduced by a model that approximates the SQUID as a single junction with a controllable switching current. It can be explained phenomenologically by taking into account two kinds of dissipation that arise from ac currents flowing through the lead and along the SQUID's loop.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.66.134522

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We measured the retrapping current of a small-capacitance underdamped dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) at low temperatures as a function of magnetic field. We found that the relative phase relation between the magnetic-field dependence of the retrapping current and that of the switching current jumped from 0 to \ensuremathπ\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremathπ at EJ\ensuremath∼EC,{E}_{\mathrm{J}}\ensuremath{\sim}{E}_{\mathrm{C}},EJ​\ensuremath∼EC​, where EJ{E}_{\mathrm{J}}EJ​ and EC{E}_{\mathrm{C}}EC​ are the Josephson energy and the charging energy of a Cooper pair. This phenomenon cannot be reproduced by a model that approximates the SQUID as a single junction with a controllable switching current. It can be explained phenomenologically by taking into account two kinds of dissipation that arise from ac currents flowing through the lead and along the SQUID's loop.
Two states of a flux qubit with three Josephson junctions were shown in a single measurement with a dc-SQUID. The qubit is an aluminum superconductor loop surrounded by a dc-SQUID for readout. It has two states, which have persistent currents flowing in opposite directions. The readout data for three samples with different junction sizes suggest that the probability distribution for the double-well potential depends on the ratio of E J / E C , where E J is the Josephson energy and E C is the charging energy. The probability distribution was estimated by calculating the wavefunctions and energy levels for the measured samples. We measured the retrapping current of a dc-SQUID without the qubit as a function of the magnetic field. It was found that the relative phase relation for the magnetic field dependence of the retrapping current jumped from 0 to π at E J ≈ E C . This jump can be explained phenomenologically by taking into account the two kinds of dissipation arising from ac currents flowing through the lead and along the SQUID loop. The fact that the jump occurred at E J ≈ E C strongly suggests that the quantum nature of the electromagnetic environment needs to be taken into account in order to understand the origin of the dissipation.
We have fabricated and studied a promising kind of direct current superconducting quantum interference device (dc-SQUID) in which the magnitude and sign of the critical current of the individual Josephson junctions can be controlled by additional voltage probes connected to the junctions. We show that the amplitude of the voltage oscillations of the SQUID as a function of the applied magnetic field can be tuned and that the phase of the oscillations can be switched between 0 and π in the temperature range of 0.1–4.2 K using a suitable control voltage. This is equivalent to the external application of (n+1/2) flux quantum.
We have studied the temperature dependence of escape phenomena in various underdamped Josephson junctions (JJs). The junctions had different Josephson coupling energies E J which were relatively small, but larger than the charging energy E C . Upon increasing the temperature T , we first observe the usual cross-over between macroscopic quantum tunnelling and thermally activated (TA) behaviour at temperatures k B T ∼ ℏω p , where ω p is the plasma frequency of the junction. Increasing T further, the width of the switching current distribution has, counterintuitively, a non-monotonic temperature dependence. This can be explained by the novel cross-over from TA behaviour to underdamped phase diffusion. We show that this cross-over is expected to occur at temperatures such that k B T ∼ E J (1 − 4/π Q ) 3 /2, where Q is the quality factor of the junction at the plasma frequency, in agreement with experiment. Our findings can be compared with detailed model calculations which take into account dissipation and level quantization in a metastable well. Particular attention is paid to the sample with the smallest E J , which shows extensive phase diffusion even at the lowest temperatures. This sample consists of a dc-SQUID and a single JJ close to each other, such that the SQUID acts as a tunable inductive protection for the single junction from fluctuations of a dissipative environment. By varying the flux through the dc-SQUID, we present, for the first time, experimental evidence of the escape of a JJ from the phase diffusion regime to the free running state in a tunable environment. We also show that in the zero voltage state the losses mainly occur at frequencies near the plasma resonance.
We experimentally investigate the stochastic phase dynamics of planar Josephson junctions (JJs) and superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) defined in epitaxial InAs/Al heterostructures, and characterized by a large ratio of Josephson energy to charging energy. We observe a crossover from a regime of macroscopic quantum tunneling to one of phase diffusion as a function of temperature, where the transition temperature T^{*} is gate-tunable. The switching probability distributions are shown to be consistent with a small shunt capacitance and moderate damping, resulting in a switching current which is a small fraction of the critical current. Phase locking between two JJs leads to a difference in switching current between that of a JJ measured in isolation and that of the same JJ measured in an asymmetric SQUID loop. In the case of the loop, T^{*} is also tuned by a magnetic flux.
At an extremely low temperature of 20 mK, we measured the loop current in a tunable rf superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) with a dc-SQUID. By adjusting the magnetic flux applied to the rf-SQUID loop (Φ f ) and the small dc-SQUID (Φ cjj f ), respectively, the potential shape of the system can be fully controlled in situ. Variation in the transition step and overlap size in the switching current with a barrier flux bias are analyzed, from which we can obtain some relevant device parameters and build a model to explain the experimental phenomenon.
We have measured and propose a model for switching rates in a hysteretic dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) in the regime where phase-diffusion processes start to occur. We show that the switching rates in this regime are smaller than the rates given by Kramers' formula due to retrapping of the Josephson phase. The retrapping process, which is affected by the frequency dependent impedance of the environment of the dc SQUID, leads to a peaked second moment of the switching distribution as a function of temperature. The temperatures where the peaks occur are proportional to the critical current of the dc SQUID.