Effect of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin–orbit coupling on supercurrent rectification and magnetochiral anisotropy of ballistic Josephson junctions

Abstract

Simultaneous breaking of inversion- and time-reversal symmetry in Josephson junction leads to a possible violation of the I(ϕ) = −I(−ϕ) equality for the current-phase relation. This is known as anomalous Josephson effect and it produces a phase shift ϕ0 in sinusoidal current-phase relations. In ballistic Josephson junctions with non-sinusoidal current phase relation the observed phenomenology is much richer, including the supercurrent diode effect and the magnetochiral anisotropy of Josephson inductance. In this work, we present measurements of both effects on arrays of Josephson junctions defined on epitaxial Al/InAs heterostructures. We show that the orientation of the current with respect to the lattice affects the magnetochiral anisotropy, possibly as the result of a finite Dresselhaus component. In addition, we show that the two-fold symmetry of the Josephson inductance reflects in the activation energy for phase slips.

Josephson Diode Effect in High Mobility InSb Nanoflags

“…On the other hand, as shown in Section VI of the SI, we have observed no clear trend with the parallel component, indicating that the Dresselhaus term is of little relevance in this system, consistent with previous results reported for InAs-based JJs. 14 We add that we have observed no JDE effect for an applied out-of-plane magnetic field B z , in agreement with these conclusions.…”

“…The first experimental report on the SDE, based on electrically polar materials, 10 has appeared very recently, demonstrating supercurrent rectification. Soon after, other systems [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] have been inspected looking at supercurrent non-reciprocal transport, complemented by theoretical efforts, 9,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] in order to shed light on the microscopic mechanisms responsible for the SDE. However, both from an experimental and a theoretical point of view, this field is still in its infancy with several open questions.…”

“…Indeed, these systems offer an ideal platform to develop new architectures able to coherently control electron spin with great impact in spintronics and topological quantum computing. 14,[33][34][35] Exploiting the large SOC of InAs, the authors of Ref. 12 have observed SDE in an array of Josephson junction (JJ) devices.…”

Superconducting Diode Effect in a Three-terminal Josephson Device

“…the magnitude of the critical current is dependent upon bias direction, are one avenue to realize a superconducting diode. Recent experimental observations [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] of this effect rely on inherent properties of the materials used to fabricate the devices, with proposed physical mechanisms including breaking of inversion and time reversal symmetries [3,11,12] and exotic superconductivity [13]. In a recent work it was also theorized that interferometers based upon higher harmonic Josephson junctions can realize the Josephson diode effect, with implementation relying on highly transparent quantum point contact JJs [14].…”

The Josephson diode effect in supercurrent interferometers

“…This property of the CPR ensures that the critical currents for the two current-bias directions, I + c and I − c , are equal so that a JD effect is missing. To circumvent this symmetry constraint, previous works have observed and studied a diode effect in inversion-symmetry breaking superconducting thin films [1][2][3][4][5][6], JJs of finite-momentum pairing superconductors [7][8][9], JJs of multi-layered materials [10][11][12][13][14], topological insulator JJs [15,16], and JJs with a spin-orbit coupled two-dimensional electron gas subject to a Zeeman field [17][18][19]. Moreover, it was also noted that a diode effect can arise in spin-orbit coupled nanowire JJs subject to a Zeeman field [20][21][22][23], magnetic junctions [24][25][26], and domain wall SC channels [27].…”