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Progress in Physics of Metals

Low-Capacitance Josephson Junctions

Andrii P. Shapovalov, Pascal Febvre, Uğur Yılmaz, V. I. Shnyrkov, M. O. Belogolovskii, Alexander A. Kordyuk

Published Mar 1, 2020• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The Josephson effect, as an example of a macroscopic quantum phenomenon, reveals itself in the three-layer heterostructures formed by two superconductors coupled by a weak link that usually consists of a 1-2 nm-thick insulating barrier.The traditional way of modelling such-systems' dynamics is based on an equivalent circuit that comprises three parallel elements: a pure superconducting element with a certain supercurrent-versus-Josephson phase difference dependence, a resistor R, and a capacitor C. In this short review, we analyse the practical problem of reducing the junction capacitance while maintaining or slightly impairing other characteristics.Some arguments are presented to explain why the capacitance should be suppressed and how it will affect performance of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and digital electronics circuits.As a solution for low-capacitance junctions, we propose a weak link made of an amorphous-silicon interlayer doped with nanoscale metallic drops between the two superconducting Mo-Re-alloy electrodes.

DOI
10.15407/ufm.21.01.003

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The Josephson effect, as an example of a macroscopic quantum phenomenon, reveals itself in the three-layer heterostructures formed by two superconductors coupled by a weak link that usually consists of a 1-2 nm-thick insulating barrier.The traditional way of modelling such-systems' dynamics is based on an equivalent circuit that comprises three parallel elements: a pure superconducting element with a certain supercurrent-versus-Josephson phase difference dependence, a resistor R, and a capacitor C. In this short review, we analyse the practical problem of reducing the junction capacitance while maintaining or slightly impairing other characteristics.Some arguments are presented to explain why the capacitance should be suppressed and how it will affect performance of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and digital electronics circuits.As a solution for low-capacitance junctions, we propose a weak link made of an amorphous-silicon interlayer doped with nanoscale metallic drops between the two superconducting Mo-Re-alloy electrodes.
The transport properties of a small superconductor--normal-metal--superconducting tunnel junction can be controlled by a gate electrode coupled capacitively to the central island. We evaluate the critical Josephson current Ic{\mathit{I}}_{\mathit{c}}Ic​ through such a system as a function of the gate voltage Vg{\mathit{V}}_{\mathit{g}}Vg​ taking into account parity effects in the superconductors. The dependence Ic{\mathit{I}}_{\mathit{c}}Ic​(Vg{\mathit{V}}_{\mathit{g}}Vg​) shows resonant singularities and has a qualitatively different character for \ensuremath{\Delta}EC{\mathit{E}}_{\mathit{C}}EC​ and \ensuremath{\Delta}>EC{\mathit{E}}_{\mathit{C}}EC​, \ensuremath{\Delta} being the superconducting gap and EC{\mathit{E}}_{\mathit{C}}EC​=e2{\mathit{e}}^{2}e2/2C being the charging energy. Due to the sweeping of the gate voltage, the system can be driven to states which are metastable with respect to a change of the number of electrons on the central island. Since the lifetime of the metastable states can be macroscopically large, one can observe a remarkable bistability of the Josephson current. A weak magnetic field suppresses the interference of the electrons propagating through the central electrode, and, consequently, the magnitude of the critical current.
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This thesis describes a number of experiments with superconducting cir- cuits containing small Josephson junctions. The circuits are made out of aluminum islands which are interconnected with a very thin insulating alu- minum oxide layer. The connections form a Josephson junction. The current trough the junction is related to the superconducting phase difference across the junction and described by the well-known Josephson relation. The char- acteristic energy scale for this effect is the Josephson energy, which is a measure for the strength of the coupling of the islands. Due to the parallel plate geometry of the junction a capacitance is formed. This capacitance leads to a charging effect. The characteristic energy scale for this effect is given by the charging energy. With the shadow evaporation technique it is possible to make the Josephson junction area very small and the two characteristic energy scales of the same order of magnitude. Charge and phase are conju- gate variables. Therefore a circuit containing such small Josephson junctions exhibits quantum effects. The microfabrication technique used in this the- sis allows fabrication of solid circuits with controlled quantum mechanical behavior.
Conventional Josephson metal-insulator-metal devices are inherently underdamped and exhibit hysteretic current-voltage response due to a very high subgap resistance compared to that in the normal state. At the same time, overdamped junctions with single-valued characteristics are needed for most superconducting digital applications. The usual way to overcome the hysteretic behavior is to place an external low-resistance normal-metal shunt in parallel with each junction. Unfortunately, such solution results in a considerable complication of the circuitry design and introduces parasitic inductance through the junction. This paper provides a concise overview of some generic approaches that have been proposed in order to realize internal shunting in Josephson heterostructures with a barrier that itself contains the desired resistive component. The main attention is paid to self-shunted devices with local weak-link transmission probabilities that are so strongly disordered in the interface plane that transmission probabilities are tiny for the main part of the transition region between two super-conducting electrodes, while a small part of the interface is well transparent. We discuss the possibility of realizing a universal bimodal distribution function and emphasize advantages of such junctions that can be considered as a new class of self-shunted Josephson devices promising for practical applications in superconducting electronics operating at 4.2 K.
In Chapter 2 we made use of a hypothetical arrangement of a strongly coupled superconducting ring, interrupted by a region of weak superconductivity, to derive the essential features of the Josephson effects. In practice this same arrangement is actually employed as the basis of one of the most useful superconducting devices developed so far, the single-junction, or rf, squid . (As mentioned in the Introduction, squid is an acronym for Superconducting QUantum Interference Device.) Here the essential physics behind the operation of these important devices will be described, and in the following section the practical realisation of an rf squid with its associated readout electronics will be explained. Chapter 4 will treat in a similar way dc squid s, which are related devices possessing two weak links in a single ring, whose mode of operation is rather different.