Correlated transport in silicene-based Josephson junctions

We theoretically investigate the effects of exchange splitting, electric field and strain on the supercurrent in silicene-based Josephson junctions. It is observed that a $0-\pi$ transition is induced by the exchange splitting, and the critical supercurrent at the transition point is nonvanishing. Owing to the unique buckling structure of silicene, the supercurrent can be effectively controlled by the electric field. For the strain dressed supercurrent, it is revealed that the current-phase relation is profoundly influenced by the strain, and the supercurrent exhibits a switch effect with increasing the strength of strain. These findings will potentially provide some intriguing insights into the correlated transport in silicene-based Josephson junctions.

Figure 1

Schematic of a silicene-based Josephson junction.

Figure 2

Contour plots of spin- and valley-resolved Andreev bound states, where $l{E}_z={\lambda }_{SO}=5{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0, d/{\xi }_0=0.05$, and $\varphi =\pi /2$. For $\eta \sigma =1, m_{\eta \sigma }=0$, panels (a) and (d) are consistent with the results reported in Ref. [36].

Figure 3

$\mathrm{C}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{R}$ in a silicene-based S/F/S junction with $\mu =0$, where $l{E}_z/{\lambda }_{\mathrm{SO}}=2$ and $d/{\xi }_0=0.05$.

Figure 4

Critical supercurrent in a silicene-based S/F/S junction with $\mu =0$ and $d/{\xi }_0=0.1$, where the inset exhibits the dependence of critical supercurrent on the electric field.

Figure 5

Critical supercurrent as a function of the exchange splitting strength in a silicene-based S/F/S junction with $\mu d=10$.

Figure 6

$\mathrm{C}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{R}$ in a silicene-based S/strained/S junction. Where $\mu /{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0=20, {\mu }_S/{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0=100$, and the other parameters are taken the same values as that in Fig. 3.

Figure 7

Critical supercurrent as a function of the displacement of Dirac point. The inset shows the Fermi velocity-dependent critical supercurrent with $l{E}_z=0$. As indicated by the arrows, the upper and lower horizonal axes in the inset refer to the blue dashed and black solid curves, respectively. The corresponding parameters are taken as the same values as those in Fig. 6.