Tunneling of Cooper pairs across voltage-biased asymmetric single-Cooper-pair transistors

Abstract

We analyze tunneling of Cooper pairs across voltage biased asymmetric single-Cooper-pair transistors. Also tunneling of Cooper pairs across two capacitively coupled Cooper-pair boxes is considered, when the capacitive coupling and Cooper pair tunneling are provided by a small Josephson junction between the islands. The theoretical analysis is done at subgap voltages, where the current-voltage characteristics depend strongly on the macroscopic eigenstates of the island(s) and their coupling to the dissipative environment. As the environment we use an impedance which satisfies Re[Z]<<R_Q and a few LC-oscillators in series with Z. The numerically calculated I-V curves are compared with experiments where the quantum states of mesoscopic SQUIDs are probed with inelastic Cooper pair tunneling. The main features of the observed I-V data are reproduced. Especially, we find traces of band structure in the higher excited states of the Cooper-pair boxes as well as traces of multiphoton processes between two Cooper-pair boxes in the regime of large Josephson coupling.