Discovery of Josephson junctions generated in atomic-layered superconductors

A research group at the NIMS (Sukekatsu Ushioda, president) International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA, Masakazu Aono, director), consisting of post-doctoral researcher Shunsuke Yoshizawa, MANA researcher Takashi Uchihashi, MANA principal investigator Tomonobu Nakayama, post-doctoral researcher Takuto Kawakami and MANA principal investigator Xiao Hu, and a research team at the Institute for Solid State Physics of the University of Tokyo, consisting of post-doctoral researcher Kim Howon and associate professor Yukio Hasegawa, discovered that in an atomic-scale thick superconductor formed on a silicon surface, a single-atom difference in height between atomic layers (atomic step) acts as a Josephson junction that controls the flow of supercurrent.