Observation of parity-induced suppression of Josephson tunneling in the superconducting single electron transistor

We have measured the supercurrent branch of a superconducting single electron transistor as a function of gate charge, temperature, and magnetic field. At low temperature and magnetic field, the switching current goes from a minimum to a maximum when the gate charge is varied from 0 to e, as expected for an island in the ground state with an even electron number. When the odd electron number ground state becomes populated by an increase of temperature or field, the Josephson tunneling is strongly suppressed, in agreement with theoretical predictions.