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Certain high-Tc cuprate superconductors, which naturally realize a stack of Josephson junctions, thus can be used to generate electromagnetic waves in the terahertz region. A plate-like single crystal with 104 junctions without cavity resonance was proposed to achieve strong radiation. For this purpose, it is required to synchronize the Josephson plasma oscillation in all junctions. In this work, we propose to use two stacks of junctions shunted in parallel to achieve synchronization. The two stacks are mutually synchronized in the whole IV curve, and there is a phase shift between the plasma oscillation in the two stacks. The phase shift is nonzero when the number of junctions in different stacks is the same, while it can be arbitrary when the number of junctions is different. This phase shift can be tuned continuously by applying a magnetic field when all the junctions are connected by superconducting wires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Left-handed materials usually are realized in artificial subwavelength structures. Here, we show that some anisotropic superconductors such as Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ; YBa2CuxOy,and La2-xSrxCuO4,are intrinsic left-handed materials. The condition is that the plasma frequency in the c axis, ωc, and in the ab plane, ωab, and the operating angular frequency, ω, satisfy ωc < ω < ωab. In addition, ω should be smaller than the superconducting energy gap to sustain superconductivity. We study the reflection and transmission of electromagnetic waves and reveal negative refraction and the backward wave with the phase velocity opposite to the direction of energy flux propagation. We also discuss possible approaches for improvement, making these properties feasible for experimental validation. Being intrinsic left-hand materials, the anisotropic superconductors are promising for applications in functional electromagnetic devices in the terahertz frequency band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The powerful terahertz emission from intrinsic Josephson junctions in high-Tc cuprate superconductors has been detected recently. The synchronization of different junctions is enhanced by excitation of the geometrical cavity resonance. A key characteristic of the radiation is its linewidth. In this work, we study the intrinsic linewidth of the radiation near the internal cavity resonance. Surprisingly, this problem was never considered before, neither for a single Josephson junction nor for a stack of the intrinsic Josephson junctions realized in cuprate superconductors. The linewidth appears due to the slow phase diffusion, which is determined by the dissipation and amplitude of the noise. We found that both these parameters are resonantly enhanced when the cavity mode is excited but enhancement of the dissipation dominates leading to the net suppression of diffusion and dramatic narrowing of the linewidth. The line shape changes from Lorentzian to Gaussian when either the Josephson frequency is shifted away from the, resonance or the temperature is increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiband superconductors support the excitation of vortices with fractional quantum flux, known as fractional vortices. In the ground state, the fractional vortices in different bands bond together to form a composite vortex with the standard flux quantum Φ0; thus it is difficult to stabilize the fractional vortices. Here we show that fractional vortex lattices can be stabilized in multiband superconductors with a periodic pinning array at the half-matching field of the composite system, when full matching of the fractionalized vortices occurs. In the presence of a high current, the fractional vortices in different bands decouple and move at different velocities. When the current is turned off suddenly, the fractional vortices in different bands may be trapped at different pinning sites. This system also exhibits rich dynamic behavior, and for fractional vortices in two-band superconductors we find phases where the vortices in one band are pinned and the vortices in the other band are moving. These different phases can be observed in transport measurements and produce a new type of self-induced Shapiro steps that can arise under the application of only a dc drive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multiband superconductors, each superconducting condensate supports vortices with fractional quantum flux. In the ground state, vortices in different bands are spatially bounded together to form a composite vortex, carrying one quantum flux (I)~. Here we predict dissociation of the composite vortices lattice in the flux flow state due to the disparity of the vortex viscosity and flux of the vortex in different bands. For a small driving current, composite vortices start to deform, but the constituting vortices in different bands move with the same velocity. For a large current, composite vortices dissociate and vortices in different bands move with different velocities. The dissociation transition shows up as an increase of flux flow resistivity. In the dissociated phase, Shapiro steps are developed when an ac current is superimposed with a dc current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate that there is a long-range vortex-vortex attraction in ferromagnetic superconductors due to polarization of the magnetic moments. Vortex clusters are then stabilized in the ground state for low vortex densities. The motion of vortex clusters driven by the Lorentz force excites magnons. This regime becomes unstable at a threshold velocity above which domain walls are generated for slow relaxation of the magnetic moments and the vortex configuration becomes modulated. This dynamics of vortices and magnetic moments can be probed by transport measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strong terahertz radiation from the mesa structure of a Bi²Sr²CaCu²O8+δ single crystal has been observed recently, where the mesa intrinsically forms a cavity. For a thick mesa of a large number of junctions, there are many cavity modes with different wave vectors along the c axis corresponding to almost the same bias voltages. The mechanism responsible for exciting the uniform mode which radiates coherent terahertz waves in experiments is unknown. In this paper, we show that the in-plane dissipation selects the uniform mode. For perturbations with nonzero wave numbers along the c axis, the in-plane dissipations are significantly enhanced, which prevents the excitation of corresponding cavity modes. Our analytical results are confirmed by numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In borocarbide ErNi2B2C, the phase transition to the commensurate spin density wave at 2.3 K leaves 1 /20 part of Ising-like Er spins practically free. Vortices polarize these spins nonuniformly and repolarize them when moving. At a low spin relaxation rate and at low bias currents, vortices carrying magnetic polarization clouds become polaronlike and their velocities are determined by the effective drag coefficient, which is significantly bigger than the Bardeen-Stephen (BS) one. As current increases, at a critical current Jc vortices release polarization clouds and the velocity as well as the voltage in the I-V characteristics jump to values corresponding to the BS drag coefficient. The nonuniform components of the magnetic field and magnetization drop as velocity increases, resulting in weaker polarization and discontinuous dynamic dissociation depinning transition. As current decreases, on the way back, vortices are retrapped by polarization clouds at the current Jr < Jc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Josephson-like interband couplings in multi-band superconductivity exhibit degenerate energy minima, which support states with kinks in phase of superconductivity. When the interband couplings in systems of three or more components are frustrated, the time-reversal symmetry (TRS) can be broken, which generates another type of phase kink between the two time-reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB) pair states. In this work, we focus on these novel states of phase kinks, and investigate their stability, similarity, differences and physical consequences. The main results can be summarized as follows: (i) we find a new type of phase slip when the kink becomes unstable. (ii) In the kink region, TRS is broken and spontaneous magnetic fields are induced. (iii) In superconductors with TRSB, composite topological excitations associated with variations of both the superconductivity phase and amplitude can be created by local perturbations or due to proximity effect between normal metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Leggett mode associated with out-of-phase oscillations of the superconducting phase in multiband superconductors usually is heavy due to interband coupling, which makes its excitation and detection difficult. We report on the existence of a massless Leggett mode in three-band superconductors with time-reversal-symmetry breaking. The mass of this Leggett mode is small close to the time-reversal-symmetry-breaking transition and vanishes at the transition point, and thus locates within the smallest superconducting energy gap, which makes it stable and detectable, e.g., by means of the Raman spectroscopy. The thermodynamic consequences of this massless mode and possible realization in iron-based superconductors are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A single vortex overcoming the surface barrier in a mesoscopic superconductor with lateral dimensions of several coherence lengths and thickness of several nanometers provides an ideal platform to study thermal activation of a single vortex. In the presence of thermal fluctuations, there is nonzero probability for vortex penetration into or exclusion from the superconductor even when the surface barrier does not vanish. We consider the thermal activation of a single vortex in a mesoscopic superconducting disk of circular shape. To obtain statistics for the penetration and exclusion magnetic fields, slow and periodic magnetic fields are applied to the superconductor. We calculate the distribution of the penetration and exclusion fields from the thermal activation rate. This distribution can also be measured experimentally, which allows for a quantitative comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose to measure the spectrum of magnetic excitation in magnetic materials using the motion of a vortex lattice driven by both ac and dc currents in superconductors. When the motion of a vortex lattice is resonant with the oscillation of magnetic moments, the voltage decreases at a given current. From transport measurement, one can obtain the frequency of the magnetic excitation with the wave number determined by the vortex-lattice constant. By changing the lattice constant through applied magnetic fields, one can obtain the spectrum of the magnetic excitation up to a wave vector of order 10 nm-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the behavior of vortices of multicomponent superconductivity with intercomponent coupling, realized in MgB2 and Fe-based superconductors, within the framework of Ginzburg-Landau (GL) theory in terms of numerical calculations of the time-dependent GL equations and the variational method. It is revealed that close to the critical point of the composite system the intercomponent coupling makes the system behave as a single component superconductivity. However, when the bare mean-field critical points of the two components coincide with each other, and furthermore the interband coupling disappears at the same temperature, interesting phenomena occur as follows. Vortices interact attractively at large separation and repulsively at short distance in certain parameter space. Because of the nonmonotonic interaction profile, phase separations between vortex clusters of triangular order and the Meissner state take place, which indicates a first-order phase transition associated with the penetration of the magnetic field into a superconductor sample. Phase diagrams of vortex states are then constructed with the associated magnetization curve. It is found that the system shares some features of both type-I and -II superconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new family of dynamic states are found in a stack of inductively coupled intrinsic Josephson junctions in the absence of an external magnetic field. In this state, (2 m l+1) π phase kinks with integers m l’s stack along the c axis and lock neighboring junctions together. A significant part of the dc power is pumped into plasma oscillations via kinks at the cavity resonances. The plasma oscillation is uniform along the c axis with the frequency satisfying the ac Josephson relation. Thus this state supports strong terahertz radiation and seems to be compatible with the recent experimental observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beside the spin density wave (SDW) order inside the superconducting phase in CeCoIn5 at high magnetic fields, recent neutron scattering measurements have found Bragg peaks in 5% Nd-doped CeCoIn5 at low fields. The intensity of Bragg peaks in low fields is suppressed by increasing field. Based on the phenomenological and microscopic modeling, we show that for the Pauli limited d-wave superconductors in the vicinity of SDW instability relevant for CeCoIn5, magnetic impurities locally induce droplets of SDW order. Because of the strong anisotropy in the momentum space in the spin fluctuations guaranteed by the d-wave pairing symmetry, sharp peaks in spin structure factor at Qs are produced by the impurities, even when the droplets of SDW do not order. At zero field, the Nd impurity spins are along the c axis due to the coupling to the conduction electrons with an easy c axis, besides their own crystal field effect. The in-plane magnetic field cants the impurity moments toward the ab plane, which suppress the droplets of SDW order. At high fields, the long-range SDW inside the superconducting phase is stabilized as a consequence of magnon condensation. Our results are consistent with the recent neutron scattering and thermal conductivity measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In superconductors with strong coupling between superconductivity and elasticity manifested in a strong dependence of transition temperature on pressure, there is an additional contribution to intervortex interactions due to the strain field generated by vortices. When vortex lines are along the c axis of a tetragonal crystal, a square vortex lattice (VL) is favored at low vortex densities, because the vortex-induced strains contribution to the intervortex interactions is long range. At intermediate magnetic fields, the triangular lattice is stabilized. The triangular lattice evolves to the square lattice upon increasing magnetic field, and eventually the system locks to the square structure. We argue, however, that as magnetic field approaches the upper critical field Hc2 the elastic intervortex interactions disappear faster than the standard London interactions, so that VL should return to the triangular structure. Our results are compared to VLs observed in the heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local disordered nanostructures in an atomically thick metallic layer on a semiconducting substrate play significant and decisive roles in transport properties of two-dimensional (2D) conductive systems. We measured the electrical conductivity through a step of monoatomic height in a truly microscopic manner by using as a signal the superconducting pair correlation induced by the proximity effect. The transport property across a step of a one-monolayer Pb surface metallic phase, formed on a Si(111) substrate, was evaluated by inducing the pair correlation around the local defect and measuring its response, i.e., the reduced density of states at the Fermi energy using scanning tunneling microscopy. We found that the step resistance has a significant contribution to the total resistance on a nominally flat surface. Our study also revealed that steps in the 2D metallic layer terminate the propagation of the pair correlation. Superconductivity is enhanced between the first surface step and the superconductor-normal-metal interface by reflectionless tunneling when the step is located within a coherence length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]