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Coherent transfer of Cooper pairs by a movable grain

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Abstract

Superconducting circuits that incorporate Josephson junctions are of considerable experimental and theoretical interest, particularly in the context of quantum computing1,2,3,4,5. A nanometre-sized superconducting grain (commonly referred to as a Cooper-pair box2) connected to a reservoir by a Josephson junction is an important example of such a system. Although the grain contains a large number of electrons, it has been experimentally demonstrated6 that its states are given by a superposition of only two charge states (differing by 2e, where e is the electronic charge). Coupling between charge transfer and mechanical motion in nanometre-sized structures has also received considerable attention7,8,9,10. Here we demonstrate theoretically that a movable Cooper-pair box oscillating periodically between two remote superconducting electrodes can serve as a mediator of Josephson coupling, leading to coherent transfer of Cooper pairs between the electrodes. Both the magnitude and the direction of the resulting Josephson current can be controlled by externally applied electrostatic fields.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of the nanoelectromechanical system discussed in the text.
Figure 2: Illustration of the charge transport process.
Figure 3: The magnitude of the d.c. current Ī in units of I0 = 2ef as a function of the phases Φ and Ξ.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) through the programmes QDNS (A.I.) and ATOMICS (L.Y.G.) and from the Swedish Natural Science Research Council (NFR) (R.I.S.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology,

    L. Y. Gorelik, A. Isacsson, R. I. Shekhter & M. Jonson

  2. Göteborg University, Göteborg, SE-412 96, Sweden

    L. Y. Gorelik, A. Isacsson, R. I. Shekhter & M. Jonson

  3. Department of Physics, University of Oslo, PO Box 1048, Oslo, N-0316, Norway

    Y. M. Galperin

  4. Division of Solid State Physics, Ioffe Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, 194021, Russia

    Y. M. Galperin

  5. Centre for Advanced Study, Drammensveien 78, Oslo,, 0271, Norway

    L. Y. Gorelik, A. Isacsson, Y. M. Galperin, R. I. Shekhter & M. Jonson

Authors
  1. L. Y. Gorelik
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  2. A. Isacsson
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  3. Y. M. Galperin
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  4. R. I. Shekhter
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  5. M. Jonson
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Correspondence to A. Isacsson.

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Gorelik, L., Isacsson, A., Galperin, Y. et al. Coherent transfer of Cooper pairs by a movable grain. Nature 411, 454–457 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35078027

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35078027

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