TY - JOUR

T1 - Josephson Diode Effect in Supercurrent Interferometers

AU - Souto, Ruben Seoane

AU - Leijnse, Martin

AU - Schrade, Constantin

PY - 2022/12/22

Y1 - 2022/12/22

N2 - A Josephson diode is a nonreciprocal circuit element that supports a larger dissipationless supercurrent in one direction than in the other. In this Letter, we propose a class of Josephson diodes based on supercurrent interferometers composed of Andreev bound state Josephson junctions or interacting quantum dot Josephson junctions, which are not diodes themselves but possess nonsinusoidal current-phase relations. We show that such Josephson diodes have several important advantages, like being electrically tunable and requiring only time-reversal breaking by a magnetic flux. We also show that our diodes have a characteristic ac response, revealed by the Shapiro steps. Even the simplest realization of our Josephson diode paradigm that relies on only two junctions can achieve efficiencies of up to similar to 40% and, interestingly, far greater efficiencies are achievable by concatenating interferometer loops. We hope that our Letter will stimulate the search for highly tunable Josephson diode effects in Josephson devices based semiconductor -superconductor hybrids, 2d materials, and topological insulators, where nonsinusoidal current-phase relations were recently observed.

AB - A Josephson diode is a nonreciprocal circuit element that supports a larger dissipationless supercurrent in one direction than in the other. In this Letter, we propose a class of Josephson diodes based on supercurrent interferometers composed of Andreev bound state Josephson junctions or interacting quantum dot Josephson junctions, which are not diodes themselves but possess nonsinusoidal current-phase relations. We show that such Josephson diodes have several important advantages, like being electrically tunable and requiring only time-reversal breaking by a magnetic flux. We also show that our diodes have a characteristic ac response, revealed by the Shapiro steps. Even the simplest realization of our Josephson diode paradigm that relies on only two junctions can achieve efficiencies of up to similar to 40% and, interestingly, far greater efficiencies are achievable by concatenating interferometer loops. We hope that our Letter will stimulate the search for highly tunable Josephson diode effects in Josephson devices based semiconductor -superconductor hybrids, 2d materials, and topological insulators, where nonsinusoidal current-phase relations were recently observed.

KW - SUPERCONDUCTORS

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.267702

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.267702

M3 - Letter

C2 - 36608204

VL - 129

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

SN - 0031-9007

IS - 26

M1 - 267702

ER -