Macroscopic quantum phenomena in Josephson structures

Анотація

The Josephson effect is a probe of unparalleled performances in the study of a variety of macroscopic quantum phenomena. In the present article an overview of important achievements and challenging trends is given referring, in particular, to macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy level quantization. The attention is mainly addressed to high-T_C superconducting structures and recent investigations concerning nanostructures.