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Josephson vortex loops in nanostructured Josephson junctions
journal contribution
posted on 2018-02-09, 13:40 authored by G.R. Berdiyorov, M.V. Milosevic, Feodor Kusmartsev, F.M. Peeters, Sergey SavelievSergey SavelievLinked and knotted vortex loops have recently received a revival of interest. Such three-dimensional topological entities have been observed in both classical- and super-fluids, as well as in optical systems. In superconductors, they remained obscure due to their instability against collapse – unless supported by inhomogeneous magnetic field. Here we reveal a new kind of vortex matter in superconductors - the Josephson vortex loops - formed and stabilized in planar junctions or layered superconductors as a result of nontrivial cutting and recombination of Josephson vortices around the barriers for their motion. Engineering latter barriers opens broad perspectives on loop manipulation and control of other possible knotted/linked/entangled vortex topologies in nanostructured superconductors. In the context of Josephson devices proposed to date, the high-frequency excitations of the Josephson loops can be utilized in future design of powerful emitters, tunable filters and waveguides of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation, thereby pushing forward the much needed Terahertz technology.
Funding
This work was supported by EU Marie-Curie program (project No: 253057), Special Research Funds of the University of Antwerp (BOF-UA), and by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO).
History
School
- Science
Department
- Physics
Published in
Scientific ReportsCitation
BERDIYOROV, G.R. ... et al, 2018. Josephson vortex loops in nanostructured Josephson junctions. Scientific Reports, 8, Article number 2733.Publisher
Nature Publishing Group © The AuthorsVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Acceptance date
2018-01-23Publication date
2018-02-09Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Nature Publishing Group under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ISSN
2045-2322Publisher version
Language
- en