Effect of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling on supercurrent rectification and magnetochiral anisotropy of ballistic Josephson junctions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings influence supercurrent rectification and magnetochiral anisotropy in ballistic Josephson junctions, revealing orientation-dependent effects and symmetry-related phenomena.

Contribution

It provides experimental insights into the effects of spin-orbit coupling on Josephson junctions, highlighting the role of lattice orientation and symmetry in supercurrent behavior.

Findings

Magnetochiral anisotropy depends on current orientation relative to the lattice.

Two-fold symmetry of Josephson inductance affects phase slip activation energy.

Finite Dresselhaus component influences anisotropy effects.

Abstract

Simultaneous breaking of inversion- and time-reversal symmetry in Josephson junction leads to a possible violation of the $I(\varphi)=-I(-\varphi)$ equality for the current-phase relation. This is known as anomalous Josephson effect and it produces a phase shift $\varphi_0$ in sinusoidal current-phase relations. In ballistic Josephson junctions with non-sinusoidal current phase relation the observed phenomenology is much richer, including the supercurrent diode effect and the magnetochiral anisotropy of Josephson inductance. In this work, we present measurements of both effects on arrays of Josephson junctions defined on epitaxial Al/InAs heterostructures. We show that the orientation of the current with respect to the lattice affects the magnetochiral anisotropy, possibly as the result of a finite Dresselhaus component. In addition, we show that the two-fold symmetry of the Josephson inductance reflects in the activation energy for phase slips.