Phase sticking in one-dimensional Josephson junction chains

Abstract

We studied current-voltage characteristics of long one-dimensional Josephson junction chains with Josephson energy much larger than charging energy, ${E}_{J}\ensuremath{\gg}{E}_{C}$. In this regime, typical I-V curves of the samples consist of a supercurrent-like branch at low-bias voltages followed by a voltage-independent chain current branch, ${I}_{\mathrm{chain}}$ at high bias. Our experiments showed that ${I}_{\mathrm{chain}}$ is not only voltage-independent but it is also practically temperature-independent up to $T=0.7{T}_{C}$. We have successfully model the transport properties in these chains using a capacitively shunted junction model with nonlinear damping.