Coupling of two superconductors through a ferromagnet : evidence for a pi-junction

Abstract

We report measurements of the temperature dependence of the critical current in Josephson junctions consisting of conventional superconducting banks of Nb and a weakly ferromagnetic interlayer of a Cu$_x$Ni$_{1-x}$ alloy, with $x$ around 0.5. With decreasing temperature $I_c$ generally increases, but for specific thicknesses of the ferromagnetic interlayer, a maximum is found followed by a strong decrease down to zero, after which $I_c$ rises again. Such a sharp cusp can only be explained by assuming that the junction changes from a 0-phase state at high temperatures to a $\pi$-phase state at low temperatures.