Josephson effect
Efecto Josephson
- Date
- 1962 · confidence high
- Place
- Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Brian Josephson
- People
- 👤 Brian David Josephson1940–
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Between two superconductors separated by a thin barrier, a supercurrent flows by tunnelling of Cooper pairs, and a constant voltage produces an alternating current with a frequency of exactly 2eV/h. It turns the macroscopic quantum phase into a measurable quantity.
Predicted at the age of 22 as a doctoral student; Nobel Prize in 1973.
What it led to
- SQUID (ultrasensitive magnetometers)
- Quantum voltage standard (volt)
- Superconducting qubits (quantum computing)
- Microwave detectors and millimetre-wave astronomy
Built on
- Weston standard cell (cadmium)1893
- Quantum tunnelling1928
- BCS theory of superconductivity1957
- Giaever's tunnelling experiments in superconductors
Made possible
- SQUID
- Josephson voltage standard
- Transmon qubits