41 research outputs found
Dynamics of conversion of supercurrents into normal currents, and vice versa
The generation and destruction of the supercurrent in a superconductor (S)
between two resistive normal (N) current leads connected to a current source is
computed from the source equation for the supercurrent density. This equation
relates the gradient of the pair potential's phase to electron and hole
wavepackets that create and destroy Cooper pairs in the N/S interfaces. Total
Andreev reflection and supercurrent transmission of electrons and holes are
coupled together by the phase rigidity of the non-bosonic Cooper-pair
condensate. The calculations are illustrated by snapshots from a computer film.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, accepted by Phys. Rev.
Supercurrent noise in quantum point contacts
Spectral density of current fluctuations in a short ballistic superconducting
quantum point contact is calculated for arbitrary bias voltages . Contrary
to a common opinion that the supercurrent flow in Josephson junctions is
coherent process with no fluctuations, we find extremely large current noise
that is {\em caused} by the supercurrent coherence. An unusual feature of the
noise, besides its magnitude, is its voltage dependence: the noise decreases
with increasing , despite the fact that the dc current grows steadily with
. At finite voltages the noise can be qualitatively understood as the shot
noise of the large charge quanta of magnitude equal to the charge
transferred during one period of Josephson oscillations.Comment: 12 pages, revtex, 2 figures by fax/conventional mail upon reques
Adiabatic Dynamics of Superconducting Quantum Point Contacts
Starting from the quasiclassical equations for non-equilibrium Green's
functions we derive a simple kinetic equation that governs ac Josephson effect
in a superconducting quantum point contact at small bias voltages. In contrast
to existing approaches the kinetic equation is valid for voltages with
arbitrary time dependence. We use this equation to calculate
frequency-dependent linear conductance, and dc characteristics with
and without microwave radiation for resistively shunted quantum point contacts.
A novel feature of the characteristics is the excess current
appearing at small voltages. An important by-product of our
derivation is the analytical proof that the microscopic expression for the
current coincides at arbitrary voltages with the expression that follows from
the Bogolyubov-de Gennes equations, if one uses appropriate amplitudes of
Andreev reflection which contain information about microscopic structure of the
superconductors.Comment: 12 Pages, REVTEX 3.0, 3 figures available upon reques
Superconducting single-mode contact as a microwave-activated quantum interferometer
The dynamics of a superconducting quantum point contact biased at subgap
voltages is shown to be strongly affected by a microwave electromagnetic field.
Interference among a sequence of temporally localized, microwave-induced
Landau-Zener transitions between current carrying Andreev levels results in
energy absorption and in an increase of the subgap current by several orders of
magnitude. The contact is an interferometer in the sense that the current is an
oscillatory function of the inverse bias voltage. Possible applications to
Andreev-level spectroscopy and microwave detection are discussed
Subharmonic Shapiro steps and assisted tunneling in superconducting point contacts
We analyze the current in a superconducting point contact of arbitrary
transmission in the presence of a microwave radiation. The interplay between
the ac Josephson current and the microwave signal gives rise to Shapiro steps
at voltages V = (m/n) \hbar \omega_r/2e, where n,m are integer numbers and
\omega_r is the radiation frequency. The subharmonic steps (n different from 1)
are a consequence of the ocurrence of multiple Andreev reflections (MAR) and
provide an unambiguous signature of the peculiar ac Josephson effect at high
transmission. Moreover, the dc current exhibits a rich subgap structure due to
photon-assisted MARs.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages, 4 figure
Non-Equilibrium Quasiclassical Theory for Josephson Structures
We present a non-equilibrium quasiclassical formalism suitable for studying
linear response ac properties of Josephson junctions. The non-equilibrium
self-consistency equations are satisfied, to very good accuracy, already in
zeroth iteration. We use the formalism to study ac Josephson effect in a
ballistic superconducting point contact. The real and imaginary parts of the ac
linear conductance are calculated both analytically (at low frequencies) and
numerically (at arbitrary frequency). They show strong temperature, frequency,
and phase dependence. Many anomalous properties appear near phi = pi. We
ascribe them to the presence of zero energy bound states.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, Final version to appear in PR
Coherent Charge Transport in Metallic Proximity Structures
We develop a detailed microscopic analysis of electron transport in normal
diffusive conductors in the presence of proximity induced superconducting
correlation. We calculated the linear conductance of the system, the profile of
the electric field and the densities of states. In the case of transparent
metallic boundaries the temperature dependent conductance has a non-monotoneous
``reentrant'' structure. We argue that this behavior is due to nonequilibrium
effects occuring in the normal metal in the presence of both superconducting
correlations and the electric field there. Low transparent tunnel barriers
suppress the nonequilibrium effects and destroy the reentrant behavior of the
conductance. If the wire contains a loop, the conductance shows Aharonov-Bohm
oscillations with the period as a function of the magnetic flux
inside the loop. The amplitude of these oscillations also demonstrates
the reentrant behavior vanishing at and decaying as at relatively
large temperatures. The latter behavior is due to low energy correlated
electrons which penetrate deep into the normal metal and ``feel'' the effect of
the magnetic flux . We point out that the density of states and thus the
``strengh'' of the proximity effect can be tuned by the value of the flux
inside the loop. Our results are fully consistent with recent experimental
findings.Comment: 16 pages RevTeX, 23 Postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Theory of AC Josepson Effect in Superconducting Constrictions
We have developed a microscopic theory of ac Josephson effect in short
ballistic superconducting constrictions with arbitrary electron transparency
and in constrictions with diffusive electron transport. The theory is valid for
arbitrary miscroscopic structure of the superconducting electrodes of the
constriction. As applications of the theory we study smearing of the subgap
current singularities by pair-breaking effects and also the structure of these
singularities in the constrictions between the composite S/N electrodes with
the proximity-induced gap in the normal layer.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, 3 figures available on reques
Circuit theory of multiple Andreev reflections in diffusive SNS junctions: the incoherent case
The incoherent regime of Multiple Andreev Reflections (MAR) is studied in
long diffusive SNS junctions at applied voltages larger than the Thouless
energy. Incoherent MAR is treated as a transport problem in energy space by
means of a circuit theory for an equivalent electrical network. The current
through NS interfaces is explained in terms of diffusion flows of electrons and
holes through tunnel and Andreev resistors. These resistors in diffusive
junctions play roles analogous to the normal and Andreev reflection
coefficients in OTBK theory for ballistic junctions. The theory is applied to
the subharmonic gap structure (SGS); simple analytical results are obtained for
the distribution function and current spectral density for the limiting cases
of resistive and transparent NS interfaces. In the general case, the exact
solution is found in terms of chain-fractions, and the current is calculated
numerically. SGS shows qualitatively different behavior for even and odd
subharmonic numbers, and the maximum slopes of the differential resistance
correspond to the gap subharmonics. The influence of inelastic scattering on
the subgap anomalies of the differential resistance is analyzed.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, title and text revised, to appear in PR
Nonequilibrium Josephson effect in mesoscopic ballistic multiterminal SNS junctions
We present a detailed study of nonequilibrium Josephson currents and
conductance in ballistic multiterminal SNS-devices. Nonequilibrium is created
by means of quasiparticle injection from a normal reservoir connected to the
normal part of the junction. By applying a voltage at the normal reservoir the
Josephson current can be suppressed or the direction of the current can be
reversed. For a junction longer than the thermal length, , the
nonequilibrium current increases linearly with applied voltage, saturating at a
value equal to the equilibrium current of a short junction. The conductance
exhibits a finite bias anomaly around . For symmetric
injection, the conductance oscillates -periodically with the phase
difference between the superconductors, with position of the minimum
( or ) dependent on applied voltage and temperature. For
asymmetric injection, both the nonequilibrium Josephson current and the
conductance becomes -periodic in phase difference. Inclusion of barriers
at the NS-interfaces gives rise to a resonant behavior of the total Josephson
current with respect to junction length with a period . Both
three and four terminal junctions are studied.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.