Josephson junctions with nearly superconducting metal silicide barriers

Published

November 23, 2005

Author(s)

Yonuk Chong, Nicolas Hadacek, Paul Dresselhaus, Charles J. Burroughs, Burm Baek, Samuel Benz

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the electrical properties of Nb-based planar Josephson junctions with superconducting metal silicide barriers, TiSi2 and WSi2. While these non-hysteretic junctions are useful for voltage standard applications, they are also an excellent model system to study proximity-coupling in junctions having a barrier with a finite superconducting transition temperature, such as those used with oxide superconductors. These silicide barrier junctions have excellent uniformity and controllability allowing a demonstration of a Josephson voltage standard chip with 33,705 junctions. As opposed to junction barriers with no measurable superconducting transition, the critical current of these superconducting-barrier junctions is a stronger function of the operating temperature near 4 K; we also discuss the impact of this temperature dependence on device applications. The analysis used in this study gives quantitative agreement between the predicted and measured junction properties.

Citation

Applied Physics Letters

Volume

87

Issue

222511

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

Josephson array, Josephson junction, SNS junctions, voltage standard

Citation

Chong, Y. , Hadacek, N. , Dresselhaus, P. , Burroughs, C. , Baek, B. and Benz, S. (2005), Josephson junctions with nearly superconducting metal silicide barriers, Applied Physics Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=32110 (Accessed October 14, 2025)