Feasibility of harmonic generation by reflection of an electromagnetic wave from multilayer Josephson structures

An analysis is made of generation of harmonics as a result of a nonlinearity induced by an electromagnetic field in a medium consisting of planar superconducting structures of the kind that appear in some high-temperature superconductors. It is shown that the Josephson nonlinearity of such structures can be used to generate a large number (~10–10³) harmonics of an electromagnetic wave and this should make it possible to cover the frequency range from microwaves to far infrared (~10 μm).