Probing the intrinsic Josephson potential in Bi-2212 by thermal activation

Abstract

We study thermal fluctuation phenomena in small Bi-2212 intrinsic Josephson junctions. Being able to measure switching currents of a {\it single} intrinsic junction, we observe that it's statistics can be very well described by thermal activation from a periodic Josephson potential with the sinusoidal current-phase relation. This is a direct evidence for the dc-intrinsic Josephson effect and the first unambiguous confirmation of the tunnelling nature of interlayer transport in strongly anisotropic high temperature superconductors. Furthermore, the fluctuation-free critical current, extracted from the analysis of switching current statistics, exhibits a temperature dependence typical for superconductor- insulator- superconductor tunnel junctions.

5 pages, 4 figs

References in corpus (2)

• In-situ measurement of self-heating in intrinsic tunnelling spectroscopy
• Thermal fluctuations in ultrasmall intrinsic Josephson junctions

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Collapse of thermal activation in moderately damped Josephson junctions
• Anticorrelation between temperature and fluctuations in moderately damped Josephson junctions
• Temperature dependence of the bulk energy gap in underdoped Bi-2212: Evidence for the mean-field superconducting transition
• Switching Dynamics of Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ Intrinsic Josephson junctions: Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling and Self-Heating Effect
• Theory of Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling in High-T_c c-Axis Josephson Junctions
• Quantum cascade phenomenon in natural atomic superlattices formed in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 single crystals
• Observation of superluminal geometrical resonances in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x intrinsic Josephson junctions
• C-axis critical current of a PrFeAsO0.7 single crystal
• Stabilization of in-phase fluxon state by geometrical confinement in small Bi-2212 mesa structures
• Comparative analysis of tunneling magnetoresistance in low-$T_c$ Nb/AlAlOx/Nb and high-$T_c$ Bi${}_{2-y}$Pb${}_y$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ intrinsic Josephson junctions
• Persistent electrical doping of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x mesa structures
• Superconducting quantum interference phenomenon in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ single crystals
• Comment: Essence of intrinsic tunneling: Distinguishing intrinsic features from artifacts [Phys.Rev.B 72 (2005) 094503]
• Size-dependent transformation from triangular to rectangular fluxon lattice in Bi-2212 mesa structures