Chapter 10

THE JOSEPHSON EFFECT

The JOSEPHSON effect results from the passage of “particles” COOPER pairs, and
not of individual electrons, between two superconductors separated by an insulat-
ing barrier (SIS), by a normal metal (SNS), by a simple constriction in the super-
conductor (SCS or “weak link”) or by a ferromagnetic layer (SFS). Each of the
superconductors, (S1) or (S2), hosts a superconducting condensate whose wave
function (expression 9.2) possesses its own characteristics: a number of COOPER
pairs n1(r,t) or n2(r,t) and a phase
1(r,t) or
2(r,t). In the first sections of this
chapter we will discuss in detail the “standard” case of the SIS junction, where the
COOPER pairs pass from one of the superconductors to the other by tunneling.
The more complex SNS junctions will be introduced in section 10.7. The SFS
junction will be the subject of section 10.8. All these junctions are known as
“JOSEPHSON junctions.”

10.1 - JOSEPHSON equations in an SIS junction

As the thickness of the insulating layer is of order of a nanometer, the wave func-
tion of the COOPER pairs of the superconductor (S1) extends into the superconduc-
tor (S2) and inversely, which leads to a non-zero probability of transfer of COOPER
pairs from one to the other by the tunnel effect (Fig. 10.1b).

  










   



Figure 10.1 - SIS JOSEPHSON Junction
(a) An SIS JOSEPHSON junction is composed of two superconducting blocks
(1) and (2) separated by an insulating barrier. Each block is characterized by
its number of Cooper pairs n1 or n2 and by the phase of its wave function
1
or
2. (b) The overlap of the evanescent parts of the wave functions of the
COOPER pairs of each side allows the barrier to be crossed by tunneling.

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 243

P. Mangin and R. Kahn, Superconductivity,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50527-5_10
244 SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Even though this is a many-body problem (see section 10.9 further on), as a first
step we will follow the method of FEYNMAN 1 that takes the total wave func-
tion 
(t) as a linear combination of the wave functions of each condensate.

10.1.1 - The ionized hydrogen molecule

Such an approach is classic for a two-state system such as the ionized hydrogen
molecule H2, where we are interested in a single particle, the electron, that can be
“close” to one or other of the two protons. Depending on whether the electron is in
the neighborhood of proton (1) or of proton (2), the system is to considered to be in
the state 1 or 2, the most general state being a linear combination of these two
states,

(t)  c1(t) 1  c2 (t) 2 . (10.1)

The coefficients c1(t ) and c2(t ) are the probability amplitudes for the presence of
the electron near protons (1) and (2) respectively (the probabilities are c1(t ) 2 and
c2(t ) 2). Their time evolution obeys the matrix SCHRÖDINGER equation,
 E1
K   c1(t)  d  c (t) 

K  i
 1 (10.2)
E2   c2 (t)  dt  c2 (t) 
where E1 is the energy of the electron when it is bound to the isolated proton (1), E2
its energy when it is bound to proton (2) and K the coupling constant between the
two states that expresses the probability amplitude
iK/
for the electron to pass
from one site to the other per unit time. When the molecule is symmetric, as is the
case for H2, we obviously have E1  E2.

10.1.2 - Transfer between superconducting blocks

As the relevant quantity is no longer the probability of presence of the electron near
the proton H+ (1) or (2), but the number of COOPER pairs in the blocks (1) or (2),
we define, by extension,
c1(t)  n1(t) e i
1 (t ) and c2 (t)  n2 (t) e i
2 (t ) (10.3)
where c1(t ) 2  n1(t) and c2(t ) 2  n2(t) represent the number of COOPER pairs in
each block. The wave function is then written

(t)  n1(t) e i1 (t ) 1  n2 (t) e i 2 (t ) 2 (10.4)
and the SCHRÖDINGER equation becomes
 E1
K   n1(t) e i1 (t )  d n1(t) e i1 (t ) 
 i
 . (10.5)

K E2   n2 (t) e i 2 (t ) 
 dt  n2 (t) e i 2 (t ) 

1 R. FEYNMAN, R. B. LEIGHTON, M. SANDS (1966) The Feynman Lectures in Physics,

Vol. III: Quantum Mechanics, Addison-Wesley, Chap. 21. The new Millennium edition
is available on-line at http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu.