- Letter
Tunable Planar Josephson Junctions Driven by Time-Dependent Spin-Orbit Coupling
Phys. Rev. Applied 18, L031001 – Published 15 September, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.18.L031001
Abstract
The integration of conventional superconductors with common III–V semiconductors provides a versatile platform to implement tunable Josephson junctions (JJs) and their applications. We propose that with gate-controlled time-dependent spin-orbit coupling, it is possible to strongly modify the current-phase relations and Josephson energy and provide a mechanism to drive the JJ dynamics, even in the absence of any bias current. We show that the transition between stable phases is realized with a simple linear change in the strength of the spin-orbit coupling, while the transition rate can exceed the gate-induced electric field gigahertz changes by an order of magnitude. The resulting interplay between the constant effective magnetic field and changing spin-orbit coupling has direct implications for superconducting spintronics, the control of Majorana bound states, and emerging qubits. We argue that topological superconductivity, sought for fault-tolerant quantum computing, offers simpler applications in superconducting electronics and spintronics.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Corrections
20 March, 2023
Correction: The references were styled inconsistently during the proof production process and have been rectified. A proof request to change L to d in the second sentence of the second paragraph after Eq. (2), in Eq. (5), and in the text following Eq. (5) was not done and has now been implemented. The hyperlink was not active in Ref. [36] and has been fixed.
