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  • 1702.04386v2

    Rights statement: ©2017 American Physical Society

    Accepted author manuscript, 726 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Insulating Josephson-junction chains as pinned Luttinger liquids

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  • Karin Cedergren
  • Roger Ackroyd
  • Sergey Kafanov
  • Nicolas Vogt
  • Alexander Shnirman
  • Timothy Duty
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Article number167701
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>20/10/2017
<mark>Journal</mark>Physical review letters
Issue number16
Volume119
Number of pages5
Pages (from-to)167701
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date18/10/17
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Quantum physics in one spatial dimension is remarkably rich, yet even with strong interactions and disorder, surprisingly tractable. This is due to the fact that the low-energy physics of nearly all one-dimensional systems can be cast in terms of the Luttinger liquid, a key concept that parallels that of the Fermi liquid in higher dimensions. Although there have been many theoretical proposals to use linear chains and ladders of Josephson junctions to create novel quantum phases and devices, only modest progress has been made experimentally. One major roadblock has been understanding the role of disorder in such systems. We present experimental results that establish the insulating state of linear chains of sub-micron Josephson junctions as Luttinger liquids pinned by random offset charges, providing a one-dimensional implementation of the Bose glass, strongly validating the quantum many-body theory of one-dimensional disordered systems. The ubiquity of such an electronic glass in Josephson-junction chains has important implications for their proposed use as a fundamental current standard, which is based on synchronisation of coherent tunnelling of flux quanta (quantum phase slips).

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©2017 American Physical Society