Phase dependence of the superconducting current in YBCO Josephson junctions on a bicrystal substrate

Abstract

Dependences of the amplitudes of the harmonic and subharmonic Shapiro steps on an external monochromatic signal were used to study the current-phase dependence of high-temperature superconducting junctions on a bicrystal substrate. It is shown that for a symmetric definition of the transport current across the junction with an edge transparency of the order of \(\bar D = 10^{ - 4}\) and a mirror-symmetric bicrystal interface, the current-phase dependence is close to sinusoidal which differs from the theoretical predictions and is most likely caused by twinning of the high-temperature superconducting films of the electrodes forming the junction. A departure from symmetry in the definition of the transport current across the junction causes the current-phase dependence to deviate from sinusoidal, which increases with increasing degree of asymmetry. This change in the current-phase dependence is accurately described by a model which takes into account the formation of coupled Andreev states in junctions of superconductors with a \(d_{x^2 - y^2 } \) type of superconducting wave function.