In this paper, we review the progress in BiSrCaCuO-2212 Intrinsic Josephson junctions (IJJs) by summarizing our recent results in fabrication and high frequency experiments. Using a double-side fabrication process, a well defined number of intrinsic Josephson junctions in a well defined geometry can be fabricated. The junctions in the stack are quite homogeneous, and the power distribution of external irradiation among the junctions is even. Shapiro steps are clearly observed up to 2.5 THz, and the general condition for the occurrence of Shapiro steps at frequency frf is that it should be much greater than the plasma frequency fpl. Under certain conditions the Shapiro steps are zero-crossing, making some applications possible, such as quantum voltage standard etc.

High-Tc superconductors convincingly showed that these materials are essentially natural arrays of Josephson junctions formed in atomic scale. In this paper, in-plane aligned a-axis-oriented YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) thin films were successfully grown on LaSrGaO4(LSGO) (100) substrates which were cleaned by ion-beam. Voltage jumps with hysteresis implying intrinsic Josephson effects are observed in c-axis direction. This result suggest that it is possible to achieve planar intrinsic Josephson devices which have applications in high frequency electronics, such as voltage standards, Josephson masers and so on.

C-axis junction-arrays, with a-b plane sizes of sub-microns to 10 microns, were patterned on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x single crystals with either a mesa or an overlap structure. We measured the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics with microwave irradiation at a few to 100 gigahertz. At a few gigahertz, often observed were chaotic properties. Under irradiation at 100 GHz, we successfully performed harmonic mixings between the 100 GHz signal and up to the 100th harmonic of a local oscillator at about 1 GHz. Given in this paper are discussions on the observation of individual Shapiro steps, and descriptions of the relevant results. Our experimental results show that intrinsic Josephson junctions in layered superconductors can be good candidates for high frequency applications.