Effect of dissipation on the characteristics of small Josephson junctions. Suppression of Bloch oscillations

The IV characteristics of a Josephson junction of low capacitance subjected to a harmonic signal of frequency Ω are determined in the strong-bond limit for an arbitrary value of the ohmic dissipation α. It is shown that for α < 1, the interaction of external signal harmonics with Bloch oscillations results in the appearance of “voltage steps” in IVC at currents In = neΩ/π. With increasing α, these steps are smeared because of a suppression of Bloch oscillations by dissipation.