Josephson Effect in Pb/I/NbSe2 Scanning Tunneling Microscope Junctions

We have developed a method for the reproducible fabrication of superconducting scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tips. We use these tips to form superconductor/insulator/superconductor tunnel junctions with the STM tip as one of the electrodes. We show that such junctions exhibit fluctuation dominated Josephson effects, and describe how the Josephson product IcRn can be inferred from the junctions' tunneling characteristics in this regime. This is first demonstrated for tunneling into Pb films, and then applied in studies of single crystals of NbSe2. We find that in NbSe2, IcRn is lower than expected, which could be attributed to the interplay between superconductivity and the coexisting charge density wave in this material.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures. Presented at the New3SC-4 meeting, San Diego, Jan. 16-21 200

Universal transport in 2D granular superconductors

The transport properties of quench condensed granular superconductors are presented and analyzed. These systems exhibit transitions from insulating to superconducting behavior as a function of inter-grain spacing. Superconductivity is characterized by broad transitions in which the resistance drops exponentially with reducing temperature. The slope of the log R versus T curves turns out to be universaly dependent on the normal state film resistance for all measured granular systems. It does not depend on the material, critical temperature, geometry, or experimental set-up. We discuss possible physical scenarios to explain these findings.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Reactions to Recent Changes in Industrial Relations Legislation in New Zealand

At the end of February the Industrial Relations Society held a panel discussion in Auckland on the changes made to industrial relations legislation through the Industrial Relations Amendment Act (No. 2) 1976 and the Commerce Amendment Act 1976. Edited extracts from some of the contributions by panel members are recorded below

Managing of Information Systems Risks in Extended Enterprises: The Case of Outsourcing

IT security issues and outsourcing of business processes are common but largely disjoint themes in the literature; common consideration is rare even though information security risk becomes a shared risk both through IS-based processes at outsourcing partners and potentially tightly-integrated IS systems. This paper explores this lack of an integrated model combining IT risk management view with the outsourcing process. Towards the development of an integrated model outsourcing and risk managing process phases are detailed; common phases of each serve as the basis for the introduction of an integrated model. Finally the paper suggests some points for future research

Cooper pair delocalization in disordered media

We discuss the effect of disorder on the coherent propagation of the bound state of two attracting particles. It is shown that a result analogous to the Anderson theorem for dirty superconductors is also valid for the Cooper problem, namely, that the pair wave function is extended beyond the single-particle localization length if the latter is large. A physical justification is given in terms of the Thouless block-scaling picture of localization. These arguments are supplemented by numerical simulations. With increasing disorder we find a transition from a regime in which the interaction delocalizes the pair to a regime in which the interaction enhances localization.Comment: 5 pages, RevTex with 2 figures include