1,961 research outputs found
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 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
Density of states in d-wave superconductors of finite size
We consider the effect of the finite size in the ab-plane on the surface
density of states (DoS) in clean d-wave superconductors. In the bulk, the DoS
is gapless along the nodal directions, while the presence of a surface leads to
formation of another type of the low-energy states, the midgap states with zero
energy. We demonstrate that finiteness of the superconductor in one of
dimensions provides the energy gap for all directions of quasiparticle motion
except for \theta=45 degrees (\theta is the angle between the trajectory and
the surface normal); then the angle-averaged DoS behaves linearly at small
energies. This result is valid unless the crystal is 0- or 45-oriented (\alpha
\ne 0 or 45 degrees, where \alpha is the angle between the a-axis and the
surface normal). In the special case of \alpha=0, the spectrum is gapped for
all trajectories \theta; the angle-averaged DoS is also gapped. In the special
case of \alpha=45, the spectrum is gapless for all trajectories \theta; the
angle-averaged DoS is then large at low energies. In all the cases, the
angle-resolved DoS consists of energy bands that are formed similarly to the
Kronig-Penney model. The analytical results are confirmed by a self-consistent
numerical calculation.Comment: 9 pages (including 5 EPS figures), REVTeX
Non-adiabatic Josephson Dynamics in Junctions with in-Gap Quasiparticles
Conventional models of Josephson junction dynamics rely on the absence of low
energy quasiparticle states due to a large superconducting gap. With this
assumption the quasiparticle degrees of freedom become "frozen out" and the
phase difference becomes the only free variable, acting as a fictitious
particle in a local in time Josephson potential related to the adiabatic and
non-dissipative supercurrent across the junction. In this article we develop a
general framework to incorporate the effects of low energy quasiparticles
interacting non-adiabatically with the phase degree of freedom. Such
quasiparticle states exist generically in constriction type junctions with high
transparency channels or resonant states, as well as in junctions of
unconventional superconductors. Furthermore, recent experiments have revealed
the existence of spurious low energy in-gap states in tunnel junctions of
conventional superconductors - a system for which the adiabatic assumption
typically is assumed to hold. We show that the resonant interaction with such
low energy states rather than the Josephson potential defines nonlinear
Josephson dynamics at small amplitudes.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
Multiple Andreev Reflections in Weak Links of Superfluid 3He-B
We calculate the current-pressure characteristics of a ballistic pinhole
aperture between two volumes of B-phase superfluid 3He. The most important
mechanism contributing to dissipative currents in weak links of this type is
the process of multiple Andreev reflections. At low biases this process is
significantly affected by relaxation due to inelastic
quasiparticle-quasiparticle collisions. In the numerical calculations,
suppression of the superfluid order parameter at surfaces is taken into account
self-consistently. When this effect is neglected, the theory may be developed
analytically like in the case of s-wave superconductors. A comparison with
experimental results is presented.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, RevTeX
Quantum phase slips in the presence of finite-range disorder
To study the effect of disorder on quantum phase slips (QPS) in
superconducting wires, we consider the plasmon-only model where disorder can be
incorporated into a first-principles instanton calculation. We consider weak
but general finite-range disorder and compute the formfactor in the QPS rate
associated with momentum transfer. We find that the system maps onto
dissipative quantum mechanics, with the dissipative coefficient controlled by
the wave (plasmon) impedance Z of the wire and with a superconductor-insulator
transition at Z=6.5 kOhm. We speculate that the system will remain in this
universality class after resistive effects at the QPS core are taken into
account.Comment: 4 pages, as accepted at Phys. Rev. Letter
Advances in point-contact spectroscopy: two-band superconductor MgB2 (A review)
Analysis of the point-contact spectroscopy (PCS) data on the new dramatic
high-T superconductor MgB reveals quite different behavior of two
disconnected and electronic bands, deriving from their
anisotropy, different dimensionality, and electron-phonon interaction. PCS
allows direct registration of both the superconducting gaps and
electron-phonon-interaction spectral function of the two-dimensional
and three-dimensional band, establishing correlation between the gap
value and intensity of the high-T driving force -- the boron
vibration mode. PCS data on some nonsuperconducting transition-metal diborides
are surveyed for comparison.Comment: 17 pages, 30 figs., will be published in Low Temp. Phys. V.30 (2004)
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