Current fluctuations in rough superconducting tunnel junctions

Intrinsic noise is known to be ubiquitous in Josephson junctions. We introduce a rough tunnel junction model characterized by a very small number of pinholes—transport channels possessing a transmission coefficient close to unity and analyze its transport properties. Although it may still have just a small total leakage current, it can lead to enormous current fluctuations in the low-voltage regime. We show that even fully transparent transport channels between superconductors contribute to shot noise due to the uncertainty in the number of Andreev cycles. We discuss shot-noise enhancement by multiple Andreev reflection in such a junction and investigate whether pinholes might contribute as a microscopic mechanism of two-level current fluctuators. We discuss the connection of these results to the junction resonators observed in Josephson phase qubits. ©2009 The American Physical Society