Microwave cooling of Josephson plasma oscillations.

An extended Josephson junction can be described as a microwave cavity coupled to a Josephson oscillator. This is formally equivalent to a Fabry-Perot cavity with a freely vibrating mirror, where it has been shown that radiation pressure from photons in the cavity can reduce (increase) the vibrations of the mirror, effectively cooling (heating) it. We demonstrate that, similarly, the superconducting phase difference across a Josephson junction-the Josephson phase-can be "cooled" or "heated" by microwave excitation of the junction and that both these effects increase with microwave power.