Fiske Steps and Abrikosov Vortices in Josephson Tunnel Junctions

We present a theoretical and experimental study of the Fiske resonances in the current-voltage characteristics of "small" Josephson junctions with randomly distributed misaligned Abrikosov vortices. We obtained that in the presence of Abrikosov vortices the resonant interaction of electromagnetic waves, excited inside a junction, with the ac Josephson current manifests itself by Fiske steps in a current-voltage characteristics even in the absence of external magnetic field. We found that the voltage positions of the Fiske steps are determined by a junction size, but the Fiske step magnitudes depend both on the density of trapped Abrikosov vortices and on their misalignment parameter. We measured the magnetic field dependence of both the amplitude of the first Fiske step and the Josephson critical current of low-dissipative small $Nb$ based Josephson tunnel junctions with artificially introduced Abrikosov vortices. A strong decay of the Josephson critical current and a weak non-monotonic decrease of the first Fiske step amplitude on the Abrikosov vortex density were observed. The experimentally observed dependencies are well described by the developed theory.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Description of hysteretic current-voltage characteristics of SNS junctions

Simplified model for current-voltage characteristics of weak links is suggested. It is based on an approach considering the multiple Andreev reflection in metallic Josephson junction. The model allows to calculate current-voltage characteristics of the superconductor - normal metal - superconductor junctions with different thicknesses of normal layer at different temperatures. A hysteretic peculiarity of $V(I)$ dependence is described as result of the negative differential resistance. The current-voltage characteristic of high-$T_c$ composite YBCO +BaPbO${_3}$ were computed.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, submited to Supercond. Sci. Technol, replased Fig.5 for more correct comparison with experimen

Anatomy of point-contact Andreev reflection spectroscopy from the experimental point of view (review)

We review application of point-contact Andreev-reflection spectroscopy to study elemental superconductors, where theoretical conditions for the smallness of the point-contact size with respect to the characteristic lengths in the superconductor can be satisfied. We discuss existing theoretical models and identify new issues that have to be solved, especially when applying this method to investigate more complex superconductors. We will also demonstrate that some aspects of point-contact Andreev-reflection spectroscopy still need to be addressed even when investigating ordinary metals.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figs. V2: Ref.60 and footnote 3 are added, a number of minor fixe

Transport and triplet superconducting condensate in mesoscopic ferromagnet-superconductor structures

We calculate the conductance of a superconductor/ferromagnet (S/F) mesoscopic structure in the dirty limit. First we assume that the ferromagnet exhibits a homogeneous magnetization and consider the case that the penetration of the condensate into the F wire is negligible and the case in which the proximity effect is taken into account. It is shown that if the exchange field is large enough, the conductance below the critical temperature $T_C$, is always smaller than the conductance in the normal state. At last, we calculate the conductance for a F/S structure with a local inhomogeneity of the magnetization in the ferromagnet. We demonstrate that a triplet component of the condensate is induced in the F wire.This leads to a increase of the conductance below $T_C$.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures. to be published in International Journal of Modern Physics B; references adde

Heating of quasiparticles driven by oscillations of the order parameter in short superconducting microbridges

We predict 'heating' of quasiparticles driven by order parameter oscillations in the resistive state of short superconducting microbridges. The finite relaxation time of the magnitude of the order parameter $|\Delta|$ and the dependence of the spectral functions both on $|\Delta|$ and the supervelocity $Q$ are the origin of this effect. Our result is opposite to those of Aslamazov and Larkin (Zh. Eks. Teor. Fiz. {\bf 70}, 1340 (1976)) and Schmid, Schon and Tinkham (Phys. Rev. B {\bf 21} 5076 (1980)) where 'cooling' of quasiparticles was found.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Odd triplet superconductivity in superconductor-ferromagnet structures with a narrow domain wall

We study the proximity effect in superconductor-ferromagnet (SF) structure with a narrow domain wall (DW) at the SF interface. The width of the domain wall is assumed to be larger than the Fermi wave length, but smaller than other characteristic lengths (for example, the ''magnetic'' length). The transmission coefficient is supposed to be small so that we deal with a weak proximity effect. Solving the linearized Eilenberger equation, we find analytical expressions for quasiclassical Green's functions. These functions describe the short-range (SR) condensate components, singlet and triplet with zero projection of the total spin on the quantization z-axis, induced in F due to the proximity effect as well as long-range odd triplet component (LRTC) with a nonzero projection of the total spin of Cooper pairs on the $z$% -axis. The amplitude of the LRTC essentially depends on the product $h\tau$ and increases with increasing the exchange energy $h$ ($\tau$ is the elastic scattering time). We calculate the Josephson current in SFS junction with a thickness of the F layer much greater than the penetration length of the SR components. The Josephson critical current caused by the LRTC may be both positive and negative depending on chirality of the magnetic structure in F. The density of states (DOS) in a diffusive SF bilayer is also analyzed. It is shown that the contributions of the SR and LR components to the DOS in F have a different dependence on the thickness $d$ of the F layer (nonmonotonous and monotonous).Comment: 14 pages, 3 Figs. submitted to Phys. Rev.

Anomalous transport in normal-superconducting and ferromagnetic-superconducting nanostructures

We have calculated the temperature dependence of the conductance variation ($\delta S(T)$) of mesoscopic superconductor normal metal(S/N) structures, in the diffusive regime, analysing both weak and strong proximity effects. We show that in the case of a weak proximity effect there are two peaks in the dependence of $\delta S(T)$ on temperature. One of them (known from previous studies) corresponds to a temperature $T_1$ of order of the Thouless energy ($\epsilon_{Th}$), and another, newly predicted maximum, occurs at a temperature $T_2$ where the energy gap in the superconductor $\Delta(T_2)$ is of order $\epsilon_{Th}$. In the limit $L_{\phi}<L$ the temperature $T_1$ is determined by $D \hbar /L^2_{\phi}$ ($L_{\phi}$ is the phase breaking length), and not $\epsilon_{Th}$. We have also calculated the voltage dependence $\delta S(V)$ for a S/F structure (F is a ferromagnet) and predict non-monotonic behaviour at voltages of order the Zeeman splitting.Comment: 6 figures. Submitted to PRB Rapid com

Pendulum limit, chaos and phase-locking in the dynamics of ac-driven semiconductor superlattices

We describe a limiting case when nonlinear dynamics of an ac-driven semiconductor superlattice in the miniband transport regime is governed by a periodically forced and damped pendulum. We find analytically the conditions for a transition to chaos and consider an influence of temperature on the effect. We also discuss fractional dc voltage states in a superlattice originating from phase-locked states of the pendulum.Comment: 8 pages, no figures. Version2 is strongly revised: new physics, more references. 3 appendixes of this Eprint are absent in the manuscript submitted to journa