Vibrating Superconducting Island in a Josephson Junction

TL;DR

This paper explores a nanoelectromechanical device where mechanical oscillations of a superconducting island modulate the supercurrent, revealing phase-sensitive interference effects useful for studying superconducting nanoelectromechanics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel superconducting device integrating mechanical motion with Josephson tunneling, demonstrating phase-sensitive supercurrent modulation due to mechanical oscillations.

Findings

Supercurrent is modulated by mechanical oscillations.

Supercurrent exhibits phase-dependent interference patterns.

Device potential for studying superconducting nanoelectromechanical coupling.

Abstract

We consider a combined nanomechanical-supercondcuting device that allows the Cooper pair tunneling to interfere with the mechanical motion of the middle superconducting island. Coupling of mechanical oscillations of a superconducting island between two superconducting leads to the electronic tunneling generate a supercurrent which is modulated by the oscillatory motion of the island. This coupling produces alternating finite and vanishing supercurrent as function of the superconducting phases. Current peaks are sensitive to the superconducting phase shifts relative to each other. The proposed device may be used to study the nanoelectromechanical coupling in case of superconducting electronics.