Continuous Tuning of the Charge-Phase Uncertainty in a Josephson Junction

Abstract

Quantum mechanics constrains conjugate observables from being simultaneously measurable with arbitrary precision. In a Josephson junction, these are the transferred electric charge and the quantum-mechanical phase difference between the superconducting domains. Which of them fluctuates determines the supercurrent: a dissipative trickle of single Cooper pairs in one limit, a coherent dissipationless flow in the other. Bridging both regimes in one device remained elusive because the Josephson and charging energies are fixed at fabrication. Here, we use the tunable tunnel junction of a scanning tunneling microscope at millikelvin temperature to vary their ratio continuously over many orders of magnitude. In this way, we monitor the smooth transition between incoherent and coherent Cooper pair flow in a single junction, revealing the quantum-to-classical transition in a controlled way.