Development of Josephson voltage standards

Abstract

Exciting applications of superconductivity are based on the macroscopic quantum state which exists in a superconductor. In this chapter we investigate the behaviour of junctions consisting of two weakly coupled superconductors. These junctions are nowadays called Josephson junctions1 (Josephson, 1962). The macroscopic quantum state results in an exceptional behaviour of these Josephson junctions. They are the basis for various applications in superconductive electronics (cf. Anders et al, 2010), e.g. in the field of metrology for highprecision measurements. The most significant representative of a metrological application is the Josephson voltage standard. This quantum standard enables the reference of the unit of voltage, the volt, just to physical constants. It is nowadays used in many laboratories worldwide for high-precision voltage measurements. The main component of each modern Josephson voltage standard is the highly integrated series array consisting of tens of thousands of Josephson junctions fabricated in thin-film technology. While Josephson junctions are conceptually simple, nearly 50 years of developments were needed to progress from single junctions delivering a few millivolt at most to highly integrated series arrays containing more than 10,000 or even 100,000 junctions. These large series arrays enable the generation of dc and ac voltages at the 10 V level, which is relevant for most applications. Conventional Josephson voltage standards based on underdamped Josephson junctions are used for dc applications. The increasing interest in highly precise ac voltages has stimulated different attempts to develop measurement tools on the basis of Josephson arrays for ac applications, namely programmable Josephson voltage standards containing binary-divided arrays and pulse-driven Josephson voltage standards both based on overdamped Josephson junctions. This chapter describes the development of these modern dc and ac Josephson voltage standards as well as their fundamentals and applications. The development and use of Josephson voltage standards have also been described recently in several review papers (amongst others: Niemeyer, 1998; Hamilton, 2000; Yoshida, 2000; Behr et al., 2002; Kohlmann et al., 2003; Benz & Hamilton, 2004; Jeanneret & Benz, 2009).