Comparative study of macroscopic quantum tunneling in Bi2Sr2CaCu2Oy intrinsic Josephson junctions with different device structures

We investigated macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) of Bi2Sr2CaCu2Oy intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs) for two device structures. One is a small mesa, which is a few nanometers thick with only two or three IJJs, and the other is a stack of a few hundred IJJs in a narrow bridge structure. The experimental results regarding the switching-current distribution for the first switch from the zero-voltage state were in good agreement with the conventional theory for a single Josephson junction, indicating that the crossover temperature from thermal activation to the MQT regime for the former device structure was similar to that for the latter device structure. Together with the observation of multiphoton transitions between quantized energy levels in the MQT regime, these results strongly suggest that the observed MQT behavior is intrinsic to a single IJJ in high-T-c cuprates and is independent of the device structure. The switching-current distribution for the second switch from the first resistive state, which was carefully distinguished from the first switch, was also compared with respect to the two device structures. In spite of the differences between the heat transfer environments, the second switch exhibited a similar temperature-independent behavior for both devices up to a much higher temperature than the crossover temperature for the first switch. We argue that this cannot be explained in terms of self-heating caused by dissipative currents after the first switch. As possible candidates for this phenomenon, the MQT process for the second switch and the effective increase in the electronic temperature due to the quasiparticle injection are discussed.