A search for the coherently radiating fluxon state in stacks of long intrinsic Josephson junctions

Abstract

We studied the motion of fluxons in a stack of intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs) of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta single crystals in a long junction limit. Driven by the tunnelling bias, current Josephson fluxons excite plasma oscillations and move in resonance with the plasma propagation modes. We examined two types of samples in this study; mesa structure (UD1) and a stack of junctions sandwiched between normal-metallic electrodes (DSC1). In a high magnetic field, the hysteresis in the I-V characteristics of both-types of samples vanished. The resulting single I-V curve exhibited a cusp structure at characteristic bias voltages which were believed to be boundaries of different moving fluxon configurations. We studied the sample-geometry dependence of the cusp characteristics by comparing the results from the two types of samples.