Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen
TT 73: Superconductivity: Tunneling and Josephson Junctions
TT 73.2: Talk
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 09:45–10:00, CHE/0089
The Evolution of the Josephson Effect: From Dynamical Coulomb Blockade to Dissipationless Supercurrent — •Irena Padniuk1, Xianzhe Zeng1, Joachim Ankerhold2, Juan Carlos Cuevas3, Klaus Kern1, 4, and Christian R. Ast1 — 1MPI für Festkörperforschung, Heisenbergstraße 1, Stuttgart — 2Institute for Complex Quantum Systems, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, Ulm — 3Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain — 4Institut de Physique, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
The Josephson effect measured with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) offers a unique platform to study superconducting transport at the atomic scale. The tunneling of Cooper pairs in ultra-low temperature STM is typically dissipative due to the dynamical Coulomb blockade, involving energy exchange with the electromagnetic environment related to the junction's capacitance. In contrast, the well-known macroscopic Josephson effect between superconductors in planar tunnel junctions is dissipationless, allowing supercurrent to flow without energy loss. Until now, a direct connection between these two regimes has remained elusive. In my talk, I will discuss how, using our ultra-high energy resolution mK-STM, we investigate the evolution of the Josephson current over a wide range of junction transmissions. Our results provide insight into the transition between dissipative quantum transport and dissipationless Cooper pair tunneling in atomic-scale junctions.
Keywords: superconductivity; Josephson effect; Josephson junction; planar tunnel junction; dynamical Coulomb blockade