2006/06/29 by M. V. Fistul, Fistul, M. V.
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0606751
4 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2006/06/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
We present a theoretical study of an escape rate for switching from the superconducting state to a resistive one in series arrays of strongly interacting Josephson junctions. At low temperatures such a switching is determined by macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) of a spatially extended Josephson phase. An increase of the crossover temperature from the thermal to quantum regimes, and a giant enhancement of MQT escape rate is obtained. Such an effect is explained by excitation of collective charge oscillations forming a \it charge instanton. Using a model of screened Coulomb interaction we found that our analysis is in a good accord with recently published experimental results on an enhancement of the MQT in single crystals of high-Tc superconductors.