Giant fractional Shapiro steps in anisotropic Josephson junction arrays

Abstract

Abstract Giant fractional Shapiro steps have been observed in Josephson junction arrays as resulting from magnetic flux quantization in the two-dimensional array. We demonstrate experimentally the appearance of giant fractional Shapiro steps in anisotropic Josephson junction arrays as unambiguous evidence of a skewed current phase relationship. Introducing anisotropy in the array results in a giant collective high frequency response that reflects the properties of a single junction, as evidenced by the observation of a Fraunhofer like magnetic field dependence of the total critical current of the system. The observed phase dynamics can be perfectly captured within an extended resistively shunted Josephson junction model. These results directly indicate the potential of Josephson junction arrays to explore the current phase relation in a very broad frequency range (down to 50 MHz) and in a wide variety of novel link materials exhibiting non-conventional current phase relationships.