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Josephson diode effect derived from short-range coherent coupling

Nature Physics volume 19, pages 1636–1641 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Typical superconducting materials have both time-reversal symmetry and inversion symmetry. Devices that break these symmetries are expected to have exotic phenomena such as the superconducting diode effect, which can provide lossless rectification. Here, we present a device comprising one Josephson junction coupled to another that exhibits the superconducting diode effect. We show that the observed effect can be controlled non-locally based on the phase difference of the adjacent junction. These results indicate that the time-reversal and spatial-inversion symmetries of a Josephson junction are broken by the coherent coupling to an adjacent junction, and this enables the engineering of superconducting phenomena mediated by interaction among Josephson junctions.

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Fig. 1: Device concept and coherent coupling of JJs.
Fig. 2: Observed SDE.
Fig. 3: Symmetric conditions of JJ1 and JJ2 that generate the SDE.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Zenodo repository at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8024898. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

S.M. and S.T. acknowledge a JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) (Grant No. JP19H05610). S.M. acknowledges JST PRESTO (Grant No. JPMJPR18L8), JST FOREST (Grant No. JPMJFR223A), Advanced Technology Institute Research Grants and the Ozawa-Yoshikawa Memorial Electronics Research Foundation. T.Y. acknowledges JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists (Grant No. 18K13484).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Emergent Matter Science, RIKEN, Saitama, Japan

    Sadashige Matsuo, Takaya Imoto, Yosuke Sato & Seigo Tarucha

  2. Department of Applied Physics, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan

    Takaya Imoto

  3. Department of Materials Engineering Science, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

    Tomohiro Yokoyama

  4. Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, Indiana, IN, USA

    Tyler Lindemann, Sergei Gronin, Geoffrey C. Gardner & Michael J. Manfra

  5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, Indiana, IN, USA

    Tyler Lindemann & Michael J. Manfra

  6. School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, Indiana, IN, USA

    Michael J. Manfra

  7. Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, Indiana, IN, USA

    Michael J. Manfra

  8. RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing, RIKEN, Saitama, Japan

    Seigo Tarucha

Authors
  1. Sadashige Matsuo
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Contributions

S.M. designed the experiments. T.L., S.G., G.C.G., and M.J.M. grew wafers to form InAs 2DEG quantum wells covered with epitaxial aluminium. S.M. fabricated the devices. S.M. and T.I. performed measurements. S.M., T.I., Y.S. and S.T. analysed the data. T.Y. performed numerical calculations. S.T. supervised the study.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Sadashige Matsuo or Seigo Tarucha.

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Nature Physics thanks Morteza Kayyalha and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–9 and Figs. 1–14.

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Source Data Figs. 1–3

Image files and the source data for Figs. 1–3.

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Matsuo, S., Imoto, T., Yokoyama, T. et al. Josephson diode effect derived from short-range coherent coupling. Nat. Phys. 19, 1636–1641 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02144-x

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