Current distributions of thermal switching in extremely underdamped Josephson junctions

Switching current measurements of large area Josephson tunnel junctions

“…These tests have been performed with the junction biased in the resistive state but otherwise with experimental conditions identical to those used for performing switching current measurements. We note that the instrumental resolution of the switching current measurements by a timing technique as implemented in this setup is extremely high as in comparison to other approaches using analog to digital converters 10,12,31 or time to amplitude converters 24,25 . However, we note that typically the experimental resolution for switching current measurements is not limited by the instrumental resolution of the data acquisition hardware but rather by the residual current and voltage noise in the junction bias electronics.…”

“…Similar time-based methods for measuring the junctions critical current at a constant current ramp rate 24,25 or the lifetime of the zero-voltage state of a junction at a constant applied bias current 17,35 have been implemented by other groups.…”

“…1b). At finite temperatures T > 0, the particle may escape from the well at bias currents γ < 1 by thermally activated processes 7,9,10,24,25,26 and also by quantum tunneling through the barrier 12,13,14,15,27 . The rate at which both processes occur depends on the barrier height…”

Freezing, accelerating, and slowing directed currents in real time with superimposed driven lattices

“…Since this underdamped classical regime has already been realized experimentally, we believe that realizing our scheme using such setup is possible [40][41][42][43]. Finally, we note that our control scheme is not restricted to two lattice systems, but could be applied also to other Hamiltonian systems having mixed phase spaces and offering chaotic layers which can be systematically connected and disconnected.…”

Metastable States and Irregular Behaviour in a Josephson Junction With Nonlinear Resistance

“…The lifetime of the metastable state depends on the resistance R in the low damping regime. In a recent experimental work concerning supercurrent decay in Josephson junctions, Silvestrini et al 8,9 consider the effect of dissipation in an underdamped junction. They have established an exponential temperature dependence for R. In the present work, we concentrate on the voltage dependence of R and show that metastable states arise mainly due to the nonlinear nature of resistance and can occur even in the absence of noise.…”