336 research outputs found
Charge imbalance and Josephson effects in superconductor-normal metal mesoscopic structures
We consider a Josephson junction the superconducting electrodes of
which are in contact with normal metal reservoirs ( means a barrier). For
temperatures near we calculate an effective critical current and the resistance of the system at the currents and . It is found that the charge imbalance,
which arises due to injection of quasiparticles from the reservoirs into
the wire, affects essentially the characteristics of the structure. The
effective critical current is always larger than the critical
current in the absence of the normal reservoirs and increases with
decreasing the ratio of the length of the wire to the charge imbalance
relaxation length . It is shown that a series of peaks arises on the
characteristics due to excitation of the Carlson-Goldman collective
modes. We find the position of Shapiro steps which deviates from that given by
the Josephson relation.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Intrinsic Josephson Effect and Violation of the Josephson Relation in Layered Superconductors
Equations describing the resistive state of a layered superconductor with
anisotropic pairing are derived. The similarity with a stack of Josephson
junctions is found at small voltages only, when current density in the
direction perpendicular to the layers can be interpreted as a sum of the
Josephson superconducting, the Ohmic dissipative and the interference currents.
In the spatially uniform state differential conductivity at higher voltages
becomes negative. Nonuniformity of the current distribution generates the
branch imbalance and violates the Josephson relation between frequency and
voltage.Comment: 11 pages, no figures, revtex, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
On Effect of Equilibrium Fluctuations on Superfluid Density in Layered Superconductors
We calculate suppression of inter- and intralayer superconducting currents
due to equilibrium phase fluctuations and find that, in contrast to a recent
prediction, the effect of thermal fluctuations cannot account for linear
temperature dependence of the superfluid density in high-Tc superconductors at
low temperatures. Quantum fluctuations are found to dominate over thermal
fluctuations at low temperatures due to hardening of their spectrum caused by
the Josephson plasma resonance. Near Tc sizeable thermal fluctuations are found
to suppress the critical current in the stack direction stronger, than in the
direction along the layers. Fluctuations of quasiparticle branch imbalance make
the spectral density of voltage fluctuations at small frequencies non zero, in
contrast to what may be expected from a naive interpretation of Nyquist
formula.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX, RevTeX, Submitted to PR
Character of electron reflection at a normal metal-Peierls semiconductor boundary
The reflection of electrons incident from a normal metal on the boundary of
the metal with a quasi-one-dimensional conductor containing a charge-density
wave (CDW) is investigated theoretically. It is shown that the reflection is
not of an Andreev character, as it was suggested earlier, but rather of a Bragg
character. This is due to the fact that the CDW is actually an electronic
crystal, and its wave vector is a reciprocal lattice vector of the electronic
crystal. The ratio of the intensities of the standard and Bragg reflection
depends on the phase of the CDW.Comment: 9 pages, no figures, revte
Convective Term and Transversely Driven Charge-Density Waves
We derive the convective terms in the damping which determine the structure
of the moving charge-density wave (CDW), and study the effect of a current
flowing transverse to conducting chains on the CDW dynamics along the chains.
In contrast to a recent prediction we find that the effect is orders of
magnitude smaller, and that contributions from transverse currents of electron-
and hole-like quasiparticles to the force exerted on the CDW along the chains
act in the opposite directions. We discuss recent experimental verification of
the effect and demonstrate experimentally that geometry effects might mimic the
transverse current effect.Comment: RevTeX, 9 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publications in PR
Linear response and collective oscillations in superconductors with d-wave pairing
Simple and physically transparent equations for the linear response of
layered superconductors with d-wave symmetry of the order parameter are derived
by means of the quasiclassic kinetic theory of superconductivity. Responses to
solenoidal and potential electric fields have different frequency dependencies.
The conductivity describing the response to the solenoidal field is limited by
the momentum relaxation, like in a normal metal. The response to the potential
electric field depends, in addition, on the branch imbalance relaxation rate.
The damping of plasma oscillations of superconducting electrons is determined
by dielectric relaxation and is small. Relaxation of branch imbalance
determined by elastic scattering is large enough to make the Carlson-Goldman
mode in d-wave superconductors overdamped.Comment: 11 pages, latex, no figures, submitted to Physical Review
Low-temperature conductivity of quasi-one-dimensional conductors: Luttinger liquid stabilized by impurities
A new non-Fermi-liquid state of quasi-one-dimensional conductors is suggested
in which electronic system exists in a form of collection of bounded Luttinger
liquids stabilized by impurities. This state is shown to be stable towards
interchain electron hopping at low temperatures. Electronic spectrum of the
system contains zero modes and collective excitations of the bounded Luttinger
liquids in the segments between impurities. Zero modes give rise to randomly
distributed localized electronic levels, and long-range interaction generates
the Coulomb gap in the density of states at the Fermi energy. Mechanism of
conductivity at low temperatures is phonon-assisted hopping via zero-mode
states. At higher voltages the excitations of Luttinger liquid are involved in
electron transport, and conductivity obeys power-law dependence on voltage. The
results provide a qualitative explanation for recent experimental data for
NbSe3 and TaS3 crystals.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur
High-frequency oscillations in low-dimensional conductors and semiconductor superlattices induced by current in stack direction
A narrow energy band of the electronic spectrum in some direction in
low-dimensional crystals may lead to a negative differential conductance and
N-shaped I-V curve that results in an instability of the uniform stationary
state. A well-known stable solution for such a system is a state with electric
field domain. We have found a uniform stable solution in the region of negative
differential conductance. This solution describes uniform high-frequency
voltage oscillations. Frequency of the oscillation is determined by antenna
properties of the system. The results are applicable also to semiconductor
superlattices.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Dissociation of vortex stacks into fractional-flux vortices
We discuss the zero field superconducting phase transition in a finite system
of magnetically coupled superconducting layers. Transverse screening is
modified by the presence of other layers resulting in topological excitations
with fractional flux. Vortex stacks trapping a full flux and present at any
finite temperature undergo an evaporation transition which corresponds to the
depairing of fractional-flux vortices in individual layers. We propose an
experiment with a bi-layer system allowing us to identify the dissociation of
bound vortex molecules.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; revised version, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
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