2003/07/29 by M. V. Fistul, A. Wallraff, Andreas Wallraff +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.91.257004
4 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2003/07/29 · openalex publication_date 2003/12/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The thermal and the quantum dissociation of a single vortex-antivortex (VAV) pair in an annular Josephson junction is experimentally observed and theoretically analyzed. In our experiments, the VAV pair is confined in a pinning potential controlled by external magnetic field and bias current. The dissociation of the pinned VAV pair manifests itself in a switching of the Josephson junction from the superconducting to the resistive state. The observed temperature and field dependence of the switching current distribution is in agreement with the analysis. The crossover from the thermal to the macroscopic quantum tunneling mechanism of dissociation occurs at a temperature of about 100 mK. We also predict the specific magnetic field dependence of the oscillatory energy levels of the pinned VAV state.