Abstract
Vortices occur naturally in a wide range of gases and fluids, from macroscopic to microscopic scales. In Bose–Einstein condensates of dilute atomic gases1, superfluid helium2 and superconductors, the existence of vortices is a consequence of the quantum nature of the system. Quantized vortices of supercurrent3 are generated by magnetic flux penetrating the material, and play a key role in determining the material properties4 and the performance of superconductor-based devices5,6. At high temperatures the dynamics of such vortices are essentially classical, while at low temperatures previous experiments have suggested collective quantum dynamics7,8. However, the question of whether vortex tunnelling occurs at low temperatures has been addressed only for large collections of vortices. Here we study the quantum dynamics of an individual vortex in a superconducting Josephson junction. By measuring the statistics of the vortex escape from a controllable pinning potential, we demonstrate the existence of quantized levels of the vortex energy within the trapping potential well and quantum tunnelling of the vortex through the pinning barrier.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abo-Shaeer, J. R., Raman, C., Vogels, J. M. & Ketterle, W. Observation of vortex lattices in Bose-Einstein condensates. Science 292, 476–479 (2001)
Blaauwgeers, R. et al. Double-quantum vortex in superfluid 3He-A. Nature 404, 471–473 (2000)
Huebener, R. P. Magnetic Flux Structures in Superconductors (Springer, Berlin, 2001)
Bugoslavsky, Y., Perkins, G. K., Qi, X., Cohen, L. F. & Caplin, A. D. Vortex dynamics in superconducting MgB2 and prospects for applications. Nature 410, 563–565 (2001)
Nori, F. & Savel'ev, S. Experimentally realizable devices for controlling the motion of magnetic flux quanta in anisotropic superconductors. Nature Mater. 1, 179–184 (2002)
Lee, C.-S., Janko, B., Derenyi, I. & Barabesi, A.-L. Reducing the vortex density in superconductors using the ratchet effect. Nature 400, 337–340 (1999)
Fazio, R. & van der Zant, H. J. S. Quantum phase transitions and vortex dynamics in superconducting networks. Phys. Rep. 355, 235–334 (2001)
Blatter, G., Feigel'man, M. V., Geshkenbein, A. I. & Vinokur, V. M. Vortices in high-temperature superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 66, 1125–1388 (1994)
Tinkham, M. Introduction to Superconductivity (McGraw-Hill International Editions, New York, 1996)
Clarke, J., Cleland, A. N., Devoret, M. H., Esteve, D. & Martinis, J. M. Quantum mechanics of a macroscopic variable: The phase difference of a Josephson junction. Science 239, 992–997 (1988)
Devoret, M. H. et al. in Quantum Tunneling in Condensed Media, (eds Kagan, Yu. & Leggett, A. J.) (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1992)
Bennett, C. H. & DiVincenzo, D. P. Quantum information and computation. Nature 404, 247–255 (2000)
Nakamura, Y., Pashkin, Y. A. & Tsai, J. S. Coherent control of macroscopic quantum states in a single-Cooper-pair box. Nature 398, 786–788 (1999)
Friedman, J. R., Patel, V., Chen, W., Tolpygo, S. K. & Lukens, J. E. Quantum superposition of distinct macroscopic states. Nature 406, 43–46 (2000)
van der Wal, C. H. et al. Quantum superposition of macroscopic persistent-current states. Science 290, 773–777 (2000)
Pashkin, Y. A. et al. Quantum oscillations in two coupled charge qubits. Nature 421, 823–826 (2003)
Chiorescu, I., Nakmura, Y., Harmans, C. J. P. M. & Mooji, J. E. Coherent quantum dynamics of a superconducting flux qubit. Science 299, 1869–1871 (2003)
Hoekstra, H. F. T. et al. General features of quantum creep in high- Tc superconductors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4293–4296 (1998)
Nicodemi, M. & Jensen, H. J. Creep of superconducting vortices in the limit of vanishing temperature: A fingerprint of off-equilibrium dynamics. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4378–4381 (2001)
van der Zant, H. S. J., Fritschy, J. F. C., Orlando, T. P. & Mooij, J. E. Dynamics of vortices in underdamped Josephson-junction arrays. Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 531–2534 (1991)
Tighe, T. S., Johnson, A. T. & Tinkham, M. Vortex motion in two-dimensional arrays of small, underdamped Josephson junctions. Phys. Rev. B 44, 10286–10290 (1991)
Ustinov, A. V. Solitons in Josephson junctions. Physica D 123, 315–329 (1998)
Kato, T. & Imada, M. Macroscopic quantum tunneling of a fluxon in a long Josephson junction. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 65, 2963–2975 (1996)
Shnirman, A., Ben-Jacob, E. & Malomed, B. A. Tunneling and resonant tunneling of fluxons in a long Josephson junction. Phys. Rev. B 56, 14677–14685 (1997)
Koval, Y. et al. Narrow long Josephson junctions. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. 9, 3957–3961 (1999)
McLaughlin, D. W. & Scott, A. C. Perturbation analysis of fluxon dynamics. Phys. Rev. A 18, 1652–1980 (1978)
Grønbech-Jensen, N., Lomdahl, P. & Samuelsen, M. Phase locking of long annular Josephson junctions coupled to an external rf magnetic field. Phys. Lett. A 154, 14–18 (1991)
Ustinov, A. V. & Thyssen, N. Experimental study of fluxon dynamics in a harmonic potential well. J. Low Temp. Phys. 106, 193–200 (1997)
Fulton, T. A. & Dunkleberger, L. N. Lifetime of the zero-voltage state in Josephson tunnel junctions. Phys. Rev. B 9, 4760–4768 (1974)
Wallraff, A. et al. Switching current measurements of large area Josephson tunnel junctions. Rev. Sci. Instrum 74, 3740–3748 (2003)
Wallraff, A., Duty, T., Lukashenko, A. & Ustinov, A. V. Multi-photon transitions between energy levels in a current-biased Josephson tunnel junction. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 037003 (2003)
Wallraff, A., Koval, Y., Levitchev, M., Fistul, M. V. & Ustinov, A. V. Annular long Josephson junctions in a magnetic field: Engineering and probing the fluxon potential. J. Low Temp. Phys. 118, 543–553 (2000)
Kemp, A., Wallraff, A. & Ustinov, A. V. Josephson vortex qubit: Design, preparation and read-out. Phys. Status Solidi B 233, 472–481 (2002)
Martucciello, N. et al. Fluxon dynamics in long annular Josephson tunnel junctions. Phys. Rev. B 57, 5444–5449 (1998)
Acknowledgements
We thank G. Blatter, T. Kato, G. Schön and S. Shnirman for discussions. This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wallraff, A., Lukashenko, A., Lisenfeld, J. et al. Quantum dynamics of a single vortex. Nature 425, 155–158 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01826
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01826
This article is cited by
-
Long-range vortex transfer in superconducting nanowires
Scientific Reports (2019)
-
Confocal Annular Josephson Tunnel Junctions with Large Eccentricity
Journal of Low Temperature Physics (2018)
-
Phonon engineering in proximity enhanced superconductor heterostructures
Scientific Reports (2017)
-
Velocimetry of superconducting vortices based on stroboscopic resonances
Scientific Reports (2016)
-
Fluxon Dynamics in Elliptic Annular Josephson Junctions
Journal of Low Temperature Physics (2016)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.