Resonant switching current detector based on underdamped Josephson junctions

Abstract

Current-biased Josephson junctions can act as detectors of electromagnetic radiation. At optimal conditions, their sensitivity is limited by fluctuations causing stochastic switching from the superconducting to the resistive state. This work provides a quantitative description of a stochastic switching current detector, based on an underdamped Josephson junction. It is shown that activation of a Josephson plasma resonance can greatly enhance the detector responsivity in proportion to the quality factor of the junction. The ways of tuning the detector for achieving optimal operation are discussed. For realistic parameters of Nb/AlOx/Nb tunnel junctions, the sensitivity can reach $S\simeq 5\times 10^{12}$ (V/W).

9 pages, 4 Figures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Influence of capacitance and thermal fluctuations on the Josephson diode effect in asymmetric higher-harmonic SQUIDs
• Effects of correlated noise on the excitation of robust breathers in an ac-driven, lossy sine-Gordon system
• Experimental demonstrations of Josephson threshold detectors for broadband microwave photons detection
• Cascade switching current detectors based on arrays of Josephson junctions
• A broadband single microwave-photon detector insensitive to the thermal noise
• Measuring weak microwave signals via current-biased Josephson Junctions II: Arriving at single-photon detection sensitivity