Fractional Order Shapiro Steps in Superconducting Nanowires

Robert C. Dinsmore; Myung-Ho Bae; Alexey Bezryadin

doi:10.1063/1.3012360

Fractional Order Shapiro Steps in Superconducting Nanowires

Superconductivity 2009-11-13 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Authors: Robert C. Dinsmore , Myung-Ho Bae , Alexey Bezryadin

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Abstract

We expose superconducting nanowires to microwave radiation in order to study phase lock-in effects in quasi one dimensional superconductors. For sufficiently high microwave powers a resistive branch with Shapiro steps appears in the voltage-current characteristics. At frequencies in the range of 0.9-4 GHz these steps are of integer order only. At higher frequencies steps of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and even 1/6 order appear. We numerically model this behavior using a multi-valued current-phase relationship (CPR) for nanowires.

Keywords

nanowire physics

Cite

@article{arxiv.0810.1730,
  title  = {Fractional Order Shapiro Steps in Superconducting Nanowires},
  author = {Robert C. Dinsmore and Myung-Ho Bae and Alexey Bezryadin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.1730},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

8 Pages plus 3 Figures and references. To appear in App. Phys. Lett

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