Holger Motzkau

Evidence for Nonlocal Electrodynamics in Planar Josephson Junctions

We study the temperature dependence of the critical current modulation I(c)(H) for two types of planar Josephson junctions: a low-Tc Nb/CuNi/Nb and a high-Tc YBa2Cu3O(7-δ) bicrystal grain-boundary junction. At low T both junctions exhibit a conventional behavior, described by the local sine-Gordon equation. However, at elevated T the behavior becomes qualitatively different: the I(c)(H) modulation field ΔH becomes almost T independent and neither ΔH nor the critical field for the penetration of Josephson vortices vanish at Tc. Such an unusual behavior is in good agreement with theoretical predictions for junctions with nonlocal electrodynamics. We extract absolute values of the London penetration depth λ from our data and show that a crossover from local to nonlocal electrodynamics occurs with increasing T when λ(T) becomes larger than the electrode thickness.

Coherent generation of phonon-polaritons in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x intrinsic Josephson junctions

The Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x high-temperature superconductor represents a natural metamaterial, composed of metallic CuO bilayers sandwiched between ionic BiO planes. Each pair of CuO bilayers forms an atomic-scale Josephson junction. Here we employ the intrinsic Josephson effect for in situ generation and detection of electromagnetic waves in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x single crystals. We observe that electromagnetic waves form polaritons with several transverse optical phonons. This indicates the presence of unscreened polar response in cuprates, which may lead to strong electronphonon interaction. Our technique can provide intense local sources of coherent, monochromatic phonon-polaritons with kW/cm power densities.

Electron-tunneling measurements of low- T c single-layer Bi 2 + x Sr 2 − y CuO 6 + δ : Evidence for a scaling disparity between superconducting and pseudogap states

Th. Jacobs, S. O. Katterwe, H. Motzkau, A. Rydh, A. Maljuk, T. Helm, C. Putzke, E. Kampert, M. V. Kartsovnik, and V. M. Krasnov Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova University Center, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research IFW Dresden, Helmholtzstr. 20, D-01171 Dresden, Germany Walther-Meissner-Institut, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Walther-Meissner-Str. 8, D-85748, Garching, Germany H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TL, United Kingdom Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Hochfeld-Magnetlabor Dresden, DE-01314 Dresden, Germany (Dated: March 1, 2012)

Photoconductivity effects in mixed-phase BSCCO whiskers

We report on combined photoconductivity and annealing experiments in whisker-like crystals of the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O (BSCCO) high-T-c superconductor. Both single-phase Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta (Bi-2212) samples and crystals of the mixed phases Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x (Bi-2223)/Bi-2212 have been subjected to annealing treatments at 90 degrees C in air in a few hours steps, up to a maximum total annealing time of 47 h. At every step, samples have been characterized by means of electrical resistance versus temperature (R versus T) and resistance versus time at fixed temperature (R versus t) measurements, both in the dark and under illumination with a UV-Vis halogen arc lamp. A careful comparison of the results from the two techniques has shown that, while for single-phase samples no effect is recorded, for mixed-phase samples an enhancement in the conductivity that increases with increasing annealing time is induced by the light at the nominal temperature T = 100 K, i.e. at an intermediate temperature between the critical temperatures of the two phases. A simple pseudo-1D model based on the Kudinovs scheme (Kudinov et al, 1993 Phys. Rev. B 47 9017-28) has been developed to account for the observed effects, which is based on the existence of Bi-2223 filaments embedded in the Bi-2212 matrix and on the presence of electronically active defects at their interfaces. This model reproduces fairly well the photoconductive experimental results and shows that the length of the Bi-2223 filaments decreases and the number of defects increases with increasing annealing time.

Persistent electrical doping of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x mesa structures

Application of a significantly large bias voltage to small Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x mesa structures leads to persistent doping of the mesas. Here, we employ this effect for analysis of the doping dependence ...

Size-dependent transformation from triangular to rectangular fluxon lattice in Bi-2212 mesa structures

We present a systematic study of the field and size dependencies of the static fluxon lattice configuration in Bi-2212 intrinsic Josephson junctions and investigate conditions needed for the formation of a rectangular fluxon lattice required for a high power flux-flow oscillator. We fabricate junctions of different sizes from Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x and Bi1.75Pb0.25Sr2CaCu2O8+x single crystals using the mesa technique and study the Fraunhofer-like modulation of the critical current with magnetic field. The modulation can be divided into three regions depending on the formed fluxon lattice. At low field, no periodic modulation and no ordered fluxon lattice is found. At intermediate fields, modulation with half-flux quantum periodicity due to a triangular lattice is seen. At high fields, the rectangular lattice gives integer flux quantum periodicity. We present these fields in dependence on the sample size and conclude that the transitions between the regions depend only on λJ(Jc) and occur at about 0.4 and 1.3 fluxons per λJ, respectively. These numbers are universal for the measured samples and are consistent with performed numerical simulations.

Comparative analysis of tunneling magnetoresistance in low-

We perform a detailed comparison of magnetotunneling in conventional low-Tc Nb/Al-AlOx/Nb junctions with that in slightly overdoped Bi2−yPbySr2CaCu2O8+δ [Bi(Pb)-2212] intrinsic Josephson junctions ...