Eur. Phys. J. B 57, 299-303 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2007-00171-x

Tunable supercurrent in a parallel double quantum dot system

¹ Department of Physics, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, 100083, P.R. China
² State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a hpan@buaa.edu.cn

Received: 10 November 2006
Revised: 23 April 2007
Published online: 15 June 2007

Abstract

The supercurrent through an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer containing two parallel quantum dots connected with two superconductor leads is investigated theoretically. The possibility of controlling the supercurrent is explored by tuning the quantum dot energy levels and the total magnetic flux. By tuning the energy levels, both quantum dots can be in the on-resonance or off-resonance states, and thus the optimal modulation of the supercurrent can be achieved. The supercurrent sign does not change by simply varying the quantum dot energy levels. However, by tuning the magnetic flux, the supercurrent can oscillate from positive to negative, which results in the π-junction transition.