Influence of charging energy on Cooper pair tunneling in Bi-2212 small intrinsic Josephson junctions

We have investigated the properties of submicron intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs) fabricated on Bi/sub 2/Sr/sub 2/CaCu/sub 2/O/sub 8+/spl delta// liquid phase epitaxy film. The IJJs with junction area S<2 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ showed individual current-voltage curves, which have suppressed 1st branch and unsuppressed other branches. This suppression was observed systematically as an increase the ratio of charging energy and Josephson coupling energy. It is expected that such suppressions are due to charging effect in IJJs.