Effect of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling on supercurrent rectification and magnetochiral anisotropy of ballistic Josephson junctions

J Phys Condens Matter. 2022 Feb 10;34(15). doi: 10.1088/1361-648X/ac4d5e.

Abstract

Simultaneous breaking of inversion- and time-reversal symmetry in Josephson junction (JJ) leads to a possible violation of theI(φ) = -I(-φ) equality for the current-phase relation. This is known as anomalous Josephson effect and it produces a phase shiftφ0in sinusoidal current-phase relations. In ballistic JJs with non-sinusoidal current phase relation the observed phenomenology is much richer, including the supercurrent diode effect and the magnetochiral anisotropy (MCA) of Josephson inductance. In this work, we present measurements of both effects on arrays of JJs defined on epitaxial Al/InAs heterostructures. We show that the orientation of the current with respect to the lattice affects the MCA, possibly as the result of a finite Dresselhaus component. In addition, we show that the two-fold symmetry of the Josephson inductance reflects in the activation energy for phase slips.

Keywords: Dresselhaus; Rashba; epitaxial aluminum; magnetochiral anisotropy; nonreciprocal transport; superconducting 2DEG; supercurrent diode.