Dynamics of semifluxons in Nb long Josephson 0-pi junctions

Abstract

We propose, implement and test experimentally long Josephson 0-pi junctions fabricated using conventional Nb-AlOx-Nb technology. We show that using a pair of current injectors, one can create an arbitrary discontinuity of the Josephson phase and in particular a pi-discontinuity, just like in d-wave/s-wave or in d-wave/d-wave junctions, and study fractional Josephson vortices which spontaneously appear. Moreover, using such junctions, we can investigate the \emph{dynamics} of the fractional vortices -- a domain which is not yet available for natural 0-pi-junctions due to their inherently high damping. We observe half-integer zero-field steps which appear on the current-voltage characteristics due to hopping of semifluxons.

Fractional vortices in conventional superconductors ;-)

References in corpus (2)

• Semi-fluxons in long Josephson 0-pi-junctions
• Ground state and bias current induced rearrangement of semifluxons in 0-pi long Josephson junctions

Cited by in corpus (19)

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• Anomalous magnetic interference of cross-type Josephson junctions exposed to oblique magnetic fields