Josephson junctions with nearly superconducting metal silicide barriers

We present a detailed study of the electrical properties of Nb-based planar Josephson junctions with superconducting metal silicide barriers, TiSi2 and WSi2. While these nonhysteretic junctions are useful for voltage standard applications, they are also an excellent model system to study proximity coupling in junctions having a barrier with a finite superconducting transition temperature. These silicide-barrier junctions have excellent uniformity and controllability, but as opposed to junction barriers with no measurable superconducting transition, the critical current of these superconducting-barrier junctions is a strong function of the operating temperature near 4 K; we also discuss the impact of this temperature dependence on device applications. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.