465 research outputs found
Supercurrent Spectroscopy of Andreev States
We measure the excitation spectrum of a superconducting atomic contact. In
addition to the usual continuum above the superconducting gap, the single
particle excitation spectrum contains discrete, spin-degenerate Andreev levels
inside the gap. Quasiparticle excitations are induced by a broadband on-chip
microwave source and detected by measuring changes in the supercurrent flowing
through the atomic contact. Since microwave photons excite quasiparticles in
pairs, two types of transitions are observed: Andreev transitions, which
consists of putting two quasiparticles in an Andreev level, and transitions to
odd states with a single quasiparticle in an Andreev level and the other one in
the continuum. In contrast to absorption spectroscopy, supercurrent
spectroscopy allows detection of long-lived odd states.Comment: typos correcte
Intensity of Coulomb Interaction between quasiparticles in diffusive metallic wires
The energy dependence and intensity of Coulomb interaction between
quasiparticles in metallic wires is obtained from two different methods:
determination of the temperature dependence of the phase coherence time from
the magnetoresistance, and measurements of the energy distribution function in
out-of-equilibrium situations. In both types of experiment, the energy
dependence of the Coulomb interaction is found to be in excellent agreement
with theoretical predictions. In contrast, the intensity of the interaction
agrees closely with theory only with the first method, whereas an important
discrepancy is found using the second one. Different explanations are proposed,
and results of a test experiment are presented.Comment: Submitted to Solid States Communication
Effect of Magnetic Impurities on Energy Exchange between Electrons
In order to probe quantitatively the effect of Kondo impurities on energy
exchange between electrons in metals, we have compared measurements on two
silver wires with dilute magnetic impurities (manganese) introduced in one of
them. The measurement of the temperature dependence of the electron phase
coherence time on the wires provides an independent determination of the
impurity concentration. Quantitative agreement on the energy exchange rate is
found with a theory by G\"{o}ppert et al. that accounts for Kondo scattering of
electrons on spin-1/2 impurities.Comment: 4 page
Asymmetric noise probed with a Josephson junction
To be published in Physical Review LettersInternational audienceFluctuations of the current through a tunnel junction are measured using a Josephson junction. The current noise adds to the bias current of the Josephson junction and affects its switching out of the supercurrent branch. The experiment is carried out in a regime where switching is determined by thermal activation. The variance of the noise results in an elevated effective temperature, whereas the third cumulant, related to its asymmetric character, leads to a difference in the switching rates observed for opposite signs of the current through the tunnel junction. Measurements are compared quantitatively with recent theoretical predictions
Measuring the distribution of current fluctuations through a Josephson junction with very short current pulses
We propose to probe the distribution of current fluctuations by means of the
escape probability histogram of a Josephson junction (JJ), obtained using very
short bias current pulses in the adiabatic regime, where the low-frequency
component of the current fluctuations plays a crucial role. We analyze the
effect of the third cumulant on the histogram in the small skewness limit, and
address two concrete examples assuming realistic parameters for the JJ. In the
first one we study the effects due to fluctuations produced by a tunnel
junction, finding that the signature of higher cumulants can be detected by
taking the derivative of the escape probability with respect to current. In
such a realistic situation, though, the determination of the whole distribution
of current fluctuations requires an amplification of the cumulants. As a second
example we consider magnetic flux fluctuations acting on a SQUID produced by a
random telegraph source of noise.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures; final versio
Quantized adiabatic charge pumping and resonant transmission
Adiabatically pumped charge, carried by non-interacting electrons through a
quantum dot in a turnstile geometry, is studied as function of the strength of
the two modulating potentials (related to the conductances of the two
point-contacts to the leads) and of the phase shift between them. It is shown
that the magnitude and sign of the pumped charge are determined by the relative
position and orientation of the closed contour traversed by the system in the
parameter plane, and the transmission peaks (or resonances) in that plane.
Integer values (in units of the electronic charge ) of the pumped charge
(per modulation period) are achieved when a transmission peak falls inside the
pumping contour. The integer value is given by the winding number of the
pumping contour: double winding in the same direction gives a charge of 2,
while winding around two opposite branches of the transmission peaks or winding
in opposite directions can give a charge close to zero.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figure
Dephasing of Electrons in Mesoscopic Metal Wires
We have extracted the phase coherence time of electronic
quasiparticles from the low field magnetoresistance of weakly disordered wires
made of silver, copper and gold. In samples fabricated using our purest silver
and gold sources, increases as when the temperature
is reduced, as predicted by the theory of electron-electron interactions in
diffusive wires. In contrast, samples made of a silver source material of
lesser purity or of copper exhibit an apparent saturation of
starting between 0.1 and 1 K down to our base temperature of 40 mK. By
implanting manganese impurities in silver wires, we show that even a minute
concentration of magnetic impurities having a small Kondo temperature can lead
to a quasi saturation of over a broad temperature range, while
the resistance increase expected from the Kondo effect remains hidden by a
large background. We also measured the conductance of Aharonov-Bohm rings
fabricated using a very pure copper source and found that the amplitude of the
conductance oscillations increases strongly with magnetic field. This set
of experiments suggests that the frequently observed ``saturation'' of
in weakly disordered metallic thin films can be attributed to
spin-flip scattering from extremely dilute magnetic impurities, at a level
undetectable by other means.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, to be published in Physical Review
Quantum Pump for Fractional Charge
We propose a theoretical scenario for pumping of fractionally charged
quasi-particle in the context of fractional quantum Hall liquid. We
consider quasi-particle pumping across an anti-dot level tuned close to the
resonance. Fractional charge pumping is achieved by slow and periodic
modulation of coupling of the anti-dot level to left and right moving edges of
a Hall bar set-up. This is attained by periodically modulating the gate
voltages controlling the couplings. In order to obtain quantization of pumped
charge in the unit of the electronic charge fraction () per pumping
cycle in the adiabatic limit, we argue that the only possibility is to tune the
quasi-particle operator to be irrelevant from being relevant in the
renormalization group sense, which can be accomplished by invoking quantum Hall
line junctions into the Hall bar geometry. We also comment on possibility for
experimental realization of the above scenario.Comment: Version to appear in Europhys. Lett. (2008
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