It is generally believed that superconductivity can occur in materials irrespective of whether the charge carriers in the material are electrons or holes. Here we point out that Josephson tunneling would not occur between superconductors with charge carriers of opposite sign. Consequently, observation of Josephson tunneling between two superconductors implies that their charge carriers have the same sign. We propose that this has profound implications for the understanding of superconductivity and in particular is consistent with the theory of hole superconductivity.
We investigate Josephson junctions among conventional superconducting wires, in the presence of externally applied Zeeman fields and supercurrents. We demonstrate that the critical Josephson current and the current-phase relation of the junction depends on the relative orientation of the applied Zeeman fields and supercurrents. The controllability of the Josephson current relies on the stabilization of conventional superconductivity in high magnetic fields, due to the restoration of the opposite momentum opposite spin projection resonance at the Fermi level. We assert that our results can lead…
We demonstrate the manifestations of the nonlinear features in magnetic dynamics and IV-characteristics of the $φ_0$ Josephson junction in the ferromagnetic resonance region. We show that at small values of system parameters, namely, damping, spin-orbit interaction, and Josephson to magnetic energy ratio, the magnetic dynamics is reduced to the dynamics of the scalar Duffing oscillator, driven by the Josephson oscillations. The role of increasing superconducting current in the resonance region is clarified. Shifting of the ferromagnetic resonant frequency and the reversal of its damping depend…
We study the Josephson effect in spin-singlet superconductor/helical $p$-wave superconductor junctions with a ferromagnetic barrier using the quasiclassical Green function method. It is found that both $\sinϕ$-type and $\cosϕ$-type current-phase relations always exist, irrespective of the gap symmetries in superconductors. The indispensable condition for the $\sinϕ$-type and $\cosϕ$-type current is that the magnetization must have a component parallel to the crystallographic $a$ or $b$ axis, which is distinct from the case of $p$-wave superconductor described by a $\vect{d}$-vector with a unif…
We study theoretically the effects of interfacial Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in superconductor/ferromagnet/superconductor (S/F/S) Josephson junctions---with allowing for tunneling barriers between the layers---by solving the Bogoljubov-de Gennes equation for a realistic heterostructure and applying the Furusaki-Tsukada technique to calculate the electric current at a finite temperature. The presence of spin-orbit couplings leads to out- and in-plane magnetoanisotropies of the Josephson current, which are giant in comparison to current magnetoanisotropies in similar normal-state…
We consider the one-dimensional (1D) topological superconductor that may form in a planar superconductor-metal-superconductor Josephson junction in which the metal is is subjected to spin orbit coupling and to an in-plane magnetic field. This 1D topological superconductor has been the subject of recent theoretical and experimental attention. We examine the effect of perpendicular magnetic field and a supercurrent driven across the junction on the position and structure of the Majorana zero modes that are associated with the topological superconductor. In particular, we show that under certain …
Interfacial spin-orbit coupling in Josephson junctions offers an intriguing way to combine anomalous Hall and Josephson physics in a single device. We study theoretically how the superposition of both effects impacts superconductor/ferromagnetic insulator/superconductor junctions' transport properties. Transverse momentum-dependent skew tunneling of Cooper pairs through the spin-active ferromagnetic insulator interface creates sizable transverse Hall supercurrents, to which we refer as anomalous Josephson Hall effect currents. We generalize the Furusaki-Tsukada formula, which got initially est…
We investigate the Josephson transport properties in a Josephson junction consisting of a conventional $s$-wave superconductor coupled to a multi-orbital noncentrosymmetric superconductor marked by an orbitally driven inversion asymmetry and isotropic interorbital spin-triplet pairing. Contrary to the canonical single band noncentrosymmetric superconductor, we demonstrate that the local interorbital spin-triplet pairing is tied to the occurrence of sign-changing spin-singlet pair amplitude on different bands with $d$-wave symmetry. Such multi-band $d^{\pm}$-wave state is a unique superconducti…
Recent advances in the development of Josephson scanning tunneling spectroscopy (JSTS) have opened a new path for the exploration of unconventional superconductors. We demonstrate that the critical current, $I_c$, measured via JSTS, images the spatial form of the superconducting order parameter in $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave superconductors around defects and in the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state. Moreover, we show that $I_c$ probes the existence of phase-incoherent superconducting correlations in the pseudo-gap region of the cuprate superconductors, thus providing unprecedented insight into it…
Recently, a quantum anomalous Hall insulator (QAHI)/superconductor heterostructure has been realized and shows half-quantized conductance plateaus in two-terminal conductance measurements [Q. L. He \textit{et al.}, Science {\bf357}, 294 (2017)]. The half-quantized conductance plateaus are considered as a solid evidence of chiral Majorana edge modes. However, there is a strong debate over the origin of the half-quantized conductance plateaus. In this work, we propose a Josephson junction based on the QAHI/superconductor heterostructure to identify the existence of chiral Majorana edge modes. We…
Intergrain Josephson Currents in Multigap Superconductors: Microscopic Origin of Low Intergrain Critical Current and Its Recovery Potential in Iron-Pnictide Materials