Phase engineering of anomalous Josephson effect derived from Andreev molecules

Sci Adv. 2023 Dec 15;9(50):eadj3698. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adj3698. Epub 2023 Dec 13.

Abstract

A Josephson junction (JJ) is a key device for developing superconducting circuits, wherein a supercurrent in the JJ is controlled by the phase difference between the two superconducting electrodes. When two JJs sharing one superconducting electrode are coherently coupled and form the Andreev molecules, a supercurrent of one JJ is expected to be nonlocally controlled by the phase difference of another JJ. Here, we evaluate the supercurrent in one of the coupled two JJs as a function of local and nonlocal phase differences. Consequently, the results exhibit that the nonlocal phase control generates a finite supercurrent even when the local phase difference is zero. In addition, an offset of the local phase difference giving the JJ ground state depends on the nonlocal phase difference. These features demonstrate the anomalous Josephson effect realized by the nonlocal phase control. Our results provide a useful concept for engineering superconducting devices such as phase batteries and dissipationless rectifiers.