In recent years, UC Santa Barbara scientists showed that they could reproduce a basic superconductor using Einstein's general theory of relativity. Now, using the same theory, they have demonstrated that the Josephson junction could be reproduced. The results are explained in a recent issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
The Josephson junction, a device that was first discovered by Brian David Josephson in the early 1960s, is a main ingredient in applications of superconductivity.
Gary Horowitz, professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara, said that Einstein's general theory of relativity — which was developed as a theory of gravity and is extremely successful in explaining a wide variety of gravitational phenomena — now is being used to explain several aspects of non-gravitational physics.
"The basic phenomenon with Josephson junctions is that you can take two superconductors, separate them by a little gap, and still find current going across it, in a specific way," said Horowitz. "And that has found many applications. So the Josephson junction is something we've reproduced using general relativity."
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