Superconductive pumping of nanomechanical vibrations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that supercurrents can induce and control nanomechanical vibrations in a nanowire Josephson junction, revealing nonlinear dynamics and potential applications in nanoelectromechanical systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for pumping energy into nanomechanical vibrations using supercurrents and explores multistable vibrational regimes and their detection methods.

Findings

Supercurrent can excite nanowire vibrations at resonance.

Multiple stationary nonlinear vibration regimes are achievable.

Detection via dc Josephson currents is possible.

Abstract

We demonstrate that a supercurrent can pump energy from a battery that provides a voltage bias into nanomechanical vibrations. Using a device containing a nanowire Josephson weak link as an example we show that a nonlinear coupling between the supercurrent and a static external magnetic field leads to a Lorentz force that excites bending vibrations of the wire at resonance conditions. We also demonstrate the possibility to achieve more than one regime of stationary nonlinear vibrations and how to detect them via the associated dc Josephson currents and we discuss possible applications of such a multistable nanoelectromechanical dynamics.