Magnetically Induced Switching-Current Jumps in InAs/Al Josephson Junctions

Abstract

We report Barkhausen-like switching at millitesla fields in an $n$-doped InAs/Al nanowire Josephson junction, which serves as an interferometric probe of intrinsic magnetic reconfigurations, as evidenced by discrete switching-current jumps. At $T=30$~mK the device displays a Fraunhofer-like modulation with $I_{\mathrm{sw}}(0)\approx 0.24\hat{I}¼\mathrm{A}$ and an abrupt transition at $|B|\approx 3\mathrm{mT}$ between two branches differing by $\hat{I}”I_{\mathrm{sw}}\approx 0.13\hat{I}¼\mathrm{A}$. By tracking the characteristic field scales from $30$ to $900$~mK, we find that the jump field is essentially temperature-independent, whereas the superconducting critical field decreases with temperature, as expected for thin Al films. The sharp discontinuity, sweep-direction asymmetry, and reproducibility across repeated scans point to avalanche-like switching between metastable magnetic configurations of the local magnetic texture, which are directly coupled to the weak link. Within an effective-field framework, each reconfiguration modifies a local field offset, thereby reshaping the interference response and leading to an abrupt reorganization of the switching-current pattern.

Main text: 9 pages, 4 figure. Supporting Information: 10 pages, 5 figures