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arXiv:cond-mat/0406710 · Physical Review Letters

Enhancement of Josephson Phase Diffusion by Microwaves

Yuri Koval, M. V. Fistul, Alexey Vladimirovich Ustinov

Published Aug 19, 2004• 31 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We report an experimental and theoretical study of the phase diffusion in small Josephson junctions under microwave irradiation. A peculiar enhancement of the phase diffusion by microwaves is observed. The enhancement manifests itself by a pronounced current peak in the current-voltage characteristics. The voltage position V(top) of the peak increases with the power P of microwave radiation as V(top) proportional to sqrt[P], while its current amplitude weakly decreases with P. As the microwave frequency increases, the peak feature evolves into Shapiro steps with a finite slope. Our theoretical analysis, taking into account the enhancement of incoherent superconducting current by multiphoton absorption, is in good agreement with experimental data.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.93.087004

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We report an experimental and theoretical study of the phase diffusion in small Josephson junctions under microwave irradiation. A peculiar enhancement of the phase diffusion by microwaves is observed. The enhancement manifests itself by a pronounced current peak in the current-voltage characteristics. The voltage position V(top) of the peak increases with the power P of microwave radiation as V(top) proportional to sqrt[P], while its current amplitude weakly decreases with P. As the microwave frequency increases, the peak feature evolves into Shapiro steps with a finite slope. Our theoretical analysis, taking into account the enhancement of incoherent superconducting current by multiphoton absorption, is in good agreement with experimental data.
We report an experimental and theoretical study of low-voltage resistive states observed in small tunnel Josephson junctions subject to microwave radiation. The observed features result from Shapiro steps in the current–voltage characteristics and appear when both thermal fluctuations and high frequency dissipation are strong. Without microwave radiation, Josephson junctions have a phase diffusion supercurrent branch characterized by a finite small resistance and hysteretic switching to a higher voltage range under these conditions. When microwave radiation is applied, three different types of resistive states are observed in the current-voltage characteristics. First, a phase diffusion branch steadily evolves and its maximum voltage Vm increases with the microwave power. Another interesting observed feature is a zero-crossing resistive state characterized by a negative resistance. Finally, we find that the low-voltage resistive state can split into numerous hysteretic fine branches resembling incoherent Shapiro-like steps. The appearance of a particular resistive state depends on the interrelations among the Josephson energy EJ, the energy kBT of thermal fluctuations, and the microwave frequency ω. A theoretical analysis based on incoherent multi-photon absorption by a junction biased in the Josephson phase diffusion regime is in good agreement with the experimental observations.
The current–voltage characteristics of a micrometre bridge of intrinsic Josephson junctions under microwave irradiation are studied. The collective switching of the group of four junctions splits up as the AC signal amplitude is gradually increased. The switching current of the remaining group of junctions is increased with increasing radiation power. We consider that microwave irradiation injects an additional quasiparticle current into the Josephson junction array. We use ideas of breakdown of quasineutrality and quasiparticle charge imbalance in the superconducting layers and explain the experimental results by the competition between the 'current effect' and the effect of suppression of the switching current by irradiation.
Experimental and theoretical studies are made of the effect of a microwave on dc current-voltage characteristics of long Josephson junctions. In the case of zero external dc current, dc voltages were observed when the microwave was applied to the junctions. By comparing the observed magnetic-field and microwave-power dependences with theoretical results, it is concluded that these dc voltages resulted from vortex motion which was induced by the applied microwave. When the junctions were in a flux-flow state caused by the external current, a good agreement between theory and experiment concerning the microwave-power and magnetic-field dependences of Shapiro steps demonstrates that an almost ideal traveling-wave type coupling between the applied microwave and a moving vortex array took place in the long Josephson junctions.
We consider the dynamics of a quantum phase-slip junction (QPSJ), a dual Josephson junction, connected to a microwave source with frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{\mathrm{mw}}$. With respect to an ordinary Josephson junction, a QPSJ can sustain dual Shapiro steps, consisting of well-defined current plateaus at multiple integers of $e{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{\mathrm{mw}}/\ensuremath{\pi}$ in the current-voltage $(I\text{\ensuremath{-}}V)$ characteristic. The experimental observation of these plateaus has been elusive up to now. We argue that thermal as well as quantum fluctuations can smear the $I\text{\ensuremath{-}}V$ characteristic considerably. In order to understand these effects, we study a current-biased QPSJ under microwave irradiation and connected to an inductive and resistive environment. We find that the effect of the fluctuations is governed by the resistance of the environment and by the ratio of the phase-slip energy and the inductive energy. Our results are of interest for experiments aiming at the observation of dual Shapiro steps in QPSJ devices for the definition of a new quantum current standard.
I-V characteristics of Josephson junction (JJ) under microwave irradiation is simulated taking the resistance, capacitance and inductance of the junction (RCLSJ) into account. Since most of the JJ made with high TC material operates at high temperature where the thermal fluctuation is playing significant role. In the present simulation, thermal noise is also taken into consideration and simulated result explains the rounding behaviour of the Shapiro step observed in the experimental I-V curve. The simulated results also confirm the growing of Shapiro steps with increasing microwave power. This model also clearly account for the appearance of broad minima and reduction of the maxima in the power dependence of the step amplitude ΔIn/2Ic as observed in the experimental data of Kautz et al. (1992).