Manipulating the magnetic state of a carbon nanotube Josephson junction using the superconducting phase

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that the magnetic state of a carbon nanotube Josephson junction can be controlled by the superconducting phase difference, revealing a phase-mediated transition influenced by strong electronic correlations.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence and theoretical validation for phase-controlled magnetic state manipulation in a carbon nanotube Josephson junction.

Findings

Observation of anharmonic Josephson current behavior.

Identification of a phase-mediated singlet-doublet transition.

Quantitative agreement with quantum Monte Carlo simulations.

Abstract

The magnetic state of a quantum dot attached to superconducting leads is experimentally shown to be controlled by the superconducting phase difference across the dot. This is done by probing the relation between the Josephson current and the superconducting phase difference of a carbon nanotube junction whose Kondo energy and superconducting gap are of comparable size. It exhibits distinctively anharmonic behavior, revealing a phase mediated singlet to doublet transition. We obtain an excellent quantitative agreement with numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo calculations. This provides strong support that we indeed observed the finite temperature signatures of the phase controlled zero temperature level-crossing transition originating from strong local electronic correlations.