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To start: I am really a huge beginner in Josephson junction. I need to understand the electrical equations associated to it, I don't need to go in the superconducting physics and I would like to stick on this if possible on the answers.

My question is the following:

The current, voltage relationship for a Josephson junction are:

$$I=I_c \sin(\delta)$$ $$V=\frac{\hbar}{2e} \frac{d \delta}{d t} $$

From this, we deduce the inductance associated to the junction:

$$V * \frac{1}{\frac{dI}{dt}} = L = \frac{\hbar}{2 e I_c \cos(\delta)} $$

When we represent electrically a josephson junction, we say that it is an inductance in parallel to a capacitance.

My question:

Here, as the current is the total one (thus going through the inductance and the capacitance in the electrical circuit). For me it means that we can model the josephson junction with a unique inductance (no capacitance) that has the value calculated here.

Then, why do we say that it is modelled with a capacitance in parallel to an inductance ? It is in contradiction from the equations above for me. Indeed in those equations everything behave as if it was an inductance that depends on $\delta$ only.

I insist on the fact that I am looking on an explanation based on the electrical equations. I have no problem to consider that for some reason physically we expect to have a capacitance somewhere, but from the electrical equations such behavior is not showing up from my understanding.

StarBucK
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1 Answers1

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As you pointed out, the small-signal model derived from the two Josephson relations is a perfect inductor.

Any parallel capacitance in the model is not derived from the Josephson relations at all, but only used to approximate AC impedance measurements of actual physical Josephson junctions. Since I am not after the bounty, here is Wikipedia as a relatively poor citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephson_effect#The_RSJ_model