Intrinsic reduction of Josephson critical current in short ballistic SNS weak links

Abstract

We present fully self-consistent calculations of the thermodynamic properties of three-dimensional clean SNS Josephson junctions, where S is an s-wave short-coherence-length superconductor and N is a clean normal metal. The junction is modeled on an infinite cubic lattice such that the transverse width of the S is the same as that of the N, and its thickness is tuned from the short to long limit. Intrinsic effects, such as a reduced order parameter near the SN boundary and finite gap to Fermi energy ratio, depress the critical Josephson current Ic, even in short junctions. Our analysis is of relevance to experiments on SNS junctions which find much smaller IcRN products than expected from the standard (non-self-consistent and quasiclassical) predictions. We also find nonstandard current-phase relations, a counterintuitive spatial distribution of the self-consistently determined order parameter phase, and an unusual low-energy gap in the local density of states within the N region.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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