Collective Cooper-Pair Transport in the Insulating State of Josephson-Junction Arrays

M. V. Fistul, V. M. Vinokur, T. I. Baturina
2008 Physical Review Letters  
We investigate collective Cooper-pair transport of one- and two-dimensional Josephson junction arrays in the insulating state. We derive an analytical expression for the current-voltage characteristic revealing thermally activated conductivity at small voltages and threshold voltage depinning. The activation energy and the related depinning voltage represent a dynamic Coulomb barrier for collective charge transfer over the whole system and scale with the system size. We show that both
more » ... are non-monotonic functions of magnetic field. We propose that formation of the dynamic Coulomb barrier as well as the size scaling of the activation energy and the depinning threshold voltage, are consequences of the mutual phase synchronization. We apply the results for interpretation of experimental data in disordered films near the superconductor-insulator transition.
doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.086805 pmid:18352651 fatcat:mxg45pjz45hrzocwx5fpkca5si