We study correlated transport in a Josephson junction array for small Josephson energies. In this regime transport is dominated by Cooper-pair hopping, although we observe that quasiparticles can not be neglected. We assume that the energy dissipated by a Cooper-pair is absorbed by the intrinsic impedance of the array. This allows us to formulate explicit Cooper-pair hopping rates without adding any parameters to the system. We show that the current through the array is correlated and crucially, these correlations rely fundamentally on the interplay between the Cooper-pairs and equilibrium quasiparticles.
We have investigated how the transport properties of small-Josephson-junction arrays vary depending on a quantum control parameter (the ratio of the Josephson coupling energy E J to the charging energy E C ), the magnitude of dissipation, and the dimensionality d of the system. We found that the arrays show Coulomb blockade behavior when R S is larger than about d R Q ( R Q ≡ h /4 e 2 =6.45 kΩ) and E J / E C is smaller than a threshold depending on the value of R S and the dimensionality. The result is discussed in terms of quantum phase transition induced by the charging effect and the dissipation.
In this thesis transport phenomena in the arrays consisting of two (SSET) or three (CPP) or more Josephson junctions are discussed. A quantitative theory of adiabatic Cooper pair transport in phase biased arrays is developed. The theory predicts that the quantum inaccuracy of the Cooper pair pumping in arrays with a small number of junctions is very large. The effects due to inhomogeneous arrays or nonideal gating sequences are also quantitatively treated. It is also shown explicitly how the pumped charge in the Cooper pair pump can be understood as a partial derivative of Berry’s phase with respect to the phase difference
φ across the array. This makes possible to obtain information about Berry’s phase by measuring the pumped current in the CPP. Also the decoherence time
τφ, which is one of the central quantities in quantum computing, is quantitatively estimated in a dissipative electromagnetic environment of the circuit. This method allows comparison of the suitability of a system as a quantum bit. Also a direct measurement of
τφ as a crossover between coherent and incoherent pumping in the single Cooper pair pump is suggested. In experiments with Cooper pair pump it is demonstrated in practise how the CPP can be used as a turnstile with help of dissipation. Also a regular pumping experiment is performed. To explain the twofold behavior of the CPP, sometimes yielding
e-periodicity while sometimes
2e-periodicity, the energy-minimisation model is developed. It is shown also experimentally that
Nb based junctions with high critical temperature (
Tc≈8.5 K) and Josephson coupling can be fabricated using the regular self-alignment technique. The measured
Al/Nb/Al SSETs show a clear signature of resonant tunnelling of Cooper pairs combined with elastic cotunnelling of quasiparticles,
q-MQT, through the barrier of
ΔNb.
We present observations of charging effects for Cooper pairs in short linear arrays of small-capacitance Josephson junctions. Current-voltage characteristics show a Coulomb gap for Cooper-pair tunneling when the charging energy exceeds the Josephson coupling energy. In a double junction a zero-voltage current is observed that is modulated by a gate voltage applied to the metal island between the junctions. For longer arrays a crossover from Coulomb blockade of Cooper-pair tunneling to a supercurrent is observed when the ratio of Josephson coupling to charging energy is increased.
We analyze how the dynamics in a current-biased mesoscopic Josephson junction can be probed by an additional smaller Josephson junction (probe). The probe is connected to a small island in between the Josephson junction and a resistor R >> R Q = h /4e 2 . The current through the resistor results in an effective current bias to the larger JJ. We model the steady state properties of the system under thermal and quantum fluctuations of the feed current. We use a density matrix approach based on the Born-Markov equations treating the current fluctuations perturbatively. The probe is also treated perturbatively assuming the regime of incoherent Cooper-pair tunneling. We find that the I - V characteristics across the probe shows traces of energy bands, Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling in the current-biased Josephson junction.
We present measurements of the temperature-dependent conductance for series arrays of small-capacitance superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). At low-bias voltages, the arrays exhibit a strong Coulomb blockade, which we study in detail as a function of temperature and Josephson energy
EJ. We find that the zero-bias conductance is dominated by a thermally activated hopping of Cooper pairs between neighboring superconductive islands with the activation energy of the order of $\ensuremath{\Lambda}{E}_{C}$, where $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ is the charge screening length in the array and
EC is the charging energy of a single SQUID.