Photon assisted tunneling in a superconducting SET transistor induced by the Josephson oscillations of a SQUID

Abstract

Josephson oscillations generated by a SQUID were used to measure photon assisted tunneling in a superconducting single electron tunneling (SET) transistor. The SQUID was fabricated only a few microns from the SET transistor. The close proximity of the generator to the SET transistor allowed for a continuous sweep of the excitation frequency from 10 GHz to 190 GHz. The amplitude of the Josephson oscillations were tuned by adjusting the flux through the SQUID loop while the frequency was independently adjusted by controlling the bias voltage across the SQUID. Current peaks which could be attributed to photon assisted tunneling in the SET transistor were observed for bias voltages less than 4*Delta/e.