Size effect of the subharmonic Shapiro steps on the interference phenomena in the Frenkel-Kontorova model with realistic substrate potentials

Abstract

Size effect of the subharmonic Shapiro steps on the behavior of harmonic ones is studied in the ac driven overdamped Frenkel-Kontorova model with different types of physically important realistic substrate potentials. The properties of harmonic Shapiro steps are directly correlated with the size of halfinteger steps; and according to that in their amplitude dependence, three distinctive types of behavior have been classified. Our results on other realistic systems show that these classifications are not universal, and that not only the size of halfinteger steps but also the type of the substrate potential determines the properties and correlation between the Shapiro steps. While for some potentials such as variable and double-barrier potential, system evolves through different types of amplitude dependence as the size of halfinteger steps changes, in the case of double-well potential, the system maintains the standard behavior (the behavior for small halfinteger steps) even in the presence of large halfinteger steps.