Phase-coherent solitonic Josephson heat oscillator

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel Josephson heat oscillator controlled by solitons, enabling fast, tunable thermal management in superconducting devices with potential applications in nanoscale heat engines.

Contribution

It presents a new device that manipulates heat currents via Josephson vortices, advancing phase-coherent caloritronics with soliton-based thermal control.

Findings

Soliton configurations significantly influence local temperature profiles.

Thermal power and temperature are enhanced at each magnetically induced soliton.

The heat oscillator's frequency can be tuned with magnetic drive oscillations.

Abstract

Since its recent foundation, phase-coherent caloritronics has sparkled continuous interest giving rise to numerous concrete applications. This research field deals with the coherent manipulation of heat currents in mesoscopic superconducting devices by mastering the Josephson phase difference. Here, we introduce a new generation of devices for fast caloritronics able to control local heat power and temperature through manipulation of Josephson vortices, i.e., solitons. Although most salient features concerning Josephson vortices in long Josephson junctions were comprehensively hitherto explored, little is known about soliton-sustained coherent thermal transport. We demonstrate that the soliton configuration determines the temperature profile in the junction, so that, in correspondence of each magnetically induced soliton, both the flowing thermal power and the temperature significantly enhance. Finally, we thoroughly discuss a fast solitonic Josephson heat oscillator, whose frequency is in tune with the oscillation frequency of the magnetic drive. Notably, the proposed heat oscillator can effectively find application as a tunable thermal source for nanoscale heat engines and coherent thermal machines.