Non conventional weakly coupled superconducting structures: Interest and ambiguities

Abstract

The interest of using the Josephson effect as a probe of the symmetry of the order parameter in superconducting materials is widely recognized. The present lecture is devoted to a brief overview of the variety of superconducting Josephson structures proposed in the context of high-Tc superconductivity and some related experimental aspects. Some of the main ideas of the underlying problems are discussed which will hopefully serve as an introduction to the following lectures referring to specific studies toward the determination of the symmetry of the order parameters.