Frustrated Frustration of Arrays with Four-Terminal Nb-Pt-Nb Josephson Junctions

Abstract: We study the frustration pattern of a square lattice with in-situ fabricated Nb-Pt-Nb four-terminal Josephson junctions. The four-terminal geometry gives rise to a checker board pattern of alternating fluxes f, f' piercing the plaquettes, which stabilizes the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition even at irrational flux quanta per plaquette, due to an unequal repartition of integer flux sum f+f' into alternating plaquettes. This type of frustrated frustration manifests as a beating pattern of the dc resistance, with state configurations at the resistance dips gradually changing between the conventional zero-flux and half-flux states. Hence, the four-terminal Josephson junction array offers a promising platform to study previously unexplored flux and vortex configurations, and provides an estimate on the spatial expansion of the four-terminal Josephson junction central weak link area.