2001/03/02 by J. K. Freericks, Branislav K. Nikolić, B. K. Nikolic +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum many-body systems #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.64.054511
published as Phys. Rev. B 64, 054511 (2001) · 16 pages, 15 figures, ReVTeX
arxiv created 2001/03/02 · openalex publication_date 2001/07/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We tune the barrier of a Josephson junction through a zero-temperature metal-insulator transition and study the thermodynamic behavior of the junction in the proximity of the quantum-critical point. We examine a short-coherence-length superconductor and a barrier (that is described by a Falicov-Kimball model) using the local approximation and dynamical mean-field theory. The inhomogeneous system is self-consistently solved by performing a Fourier transformation in the planar momentum and exactly inverting the remaining one-dimensional matrix with the renormalized perturbation expansion. Our results show a delicate interplay between oscillations on the scale of the Fermi wavelength and pair-field correlations on the scale of the coherence length, variations in the current-phase relationship, and dramatic changes in the characteristic voltage as a function of the barrier thickness or correlation strength (which can lead to an ``intrinsic'' pinhole effect).