244 research outputs found
Observation of a controllable PI-junction in a 3-terminal Josephson device
Recently Baselmans et al. [Nature, 397, 43 (1999)] showed that the direction
of the supercurrent in a superconductor/normal/superconductor Josephson
junction can be reversed by applying, perpendicularly to the supercurrent, a
sufficiently large control current between two normal reservoirs. The novel
behavior of their 4-terminal device (called a controllable PI-junction) arises
from the nonequilibrium electron energy distribution established in the normal
wire between the two superconductors. We have observed a similar supercurrent
reversal in a 3-terminal device, where the control current passes from a single
normal reservoir into the two superconductors. We show theoretically that this
behavior, although intuitively less obvious, arises from the same
nonequilibrium physics present in the 4-terminal device. Moreover, we argue
that the amplitude of the PI-state critical current should be at least as large
in the 3-terminal device as in a comparable 4-terminal device.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review B Rapid
Communication
Suppression and enhancement of the critical current in multiterminal S/N/S mesoscopic structures
We analyse the measured critical current in a mesoscopic
4-terminal S/N/S structure. The current through the S/N interface is shown to
consist not only of the Josephson component but also a
phase-coherent part of the subgap current. The current
is determined by the both components and and depends
in a nonmonotonic way on the voltage between superconductors and normal
reservoirs reaching a maximum at . The obtained theoretical
resultas are in qualitative agreement with recent experimental data.Comment: 4 page, 3 figures. To be puplished in PRB Rapid co
Direct demonstration of circulating currents in a controllable -SQUID generated by a 0 to transition of the weak links
A controllable -SQUID is a DC SQUID with two controllable
-junctions as weak links. A controllable -junction consists of a
superconducting - normal metal - superconducting Josephson junction with two
additional contacts to the normal region of the junction. By applying a voltage
over these contacts it is possible to control the sate of the junction,
i.e. a conventional (0) state or a -state, depending on the magnitude of
. We demonstrate experimentally that, by putting one junction into a
-state, a screening current is generated around the SQUID loop at integer
external flux. To be able to do this, we have fabricated controllable
-junctions, based on Cu-Nb or Ag-Nb, in a new geometry. We show that at
1.4 K only the Nb-Ag device shows the transition to a -state as a function
of consistent with theoretical predictions. In a controllable SQUID
based on Nb-Ag we observe, a part from a screening current at integer external
flux, a phase shift of of the oscillations under suitable
current bias, depending on the magnitude of .Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, subm. to Phys. Rev.
Microscopic nonequilibrium theory of double-barrier Josephson junctions
We study nonequilibrium charge transport in a double-barrier Josephson
junction, including nonstationary phenomena, using the time-dependent
quasiclassical Keldysh Green's function formalism. We supplement the kinetic
equations by appropriate time-dependent boundary conditions and solve the
time-dependent problem in a number of regimes. From the solutions,
current-voltage characteristics are derived. It is understood why the
quasiparticle current can show excess current as well as deficit current and
how the subgap conductance behaves as function of junction parameters. A
time-dependent nonequilibrium contribution to the distribution function is
found to cause a non-zero averaged supercurrent even in the presence of an
applied voltage. Energy relaxation due to inelastic scattering in the
interlayer has a prominent role in determining the transport properties of
double-barrier junctions. Actual inelastic scattering parameters are derived
from experiments. It is shown as an application of the microscopic model, how
the nature of the intrinsic shunt in double-barrier junctions can be explained
in terms of energy relaxation and the opening of Andreev channels.Comment: Accepted for Phys. Rev.
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.
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.
Nonequilibrium Josephson effect in short-arm diffusive SNS interferometers
We study non-equilibrium Josephson effect and phase-dependent conductance in
three-terminal diffusive interferometers with short arms. We consider strong
proximity effect and investigate an interplay of dissipative and Josephson
currents co-existing within the same proximity region. In junctions with
transparent interfaces, the suppression of the Josephson current appears at
rather large voltage, , and the current vanishes at
. Josephson current inversion becomes possible in junctions with
resistive interfaces, where the inversion occurs within a finite interval of
the applied voltage. Due to the presence of considerably large and
phase-dependent injection current, the critical current measured in a current
biased junction does not coincide with the maximum Josephson current, and
remains finite when the true Josephson current is suppressed. The voltage
dependence of the conductance shows two pronounced peaks, at the bulk gap
energy, and at the proximity gap energy; the phase oscillation of the
conductance exhibits qualitatively different form at small voltage ,
and at large voltage .Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, revised version, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Thermoelectric effects in superconducting proximity structures
Attaching a superconductor in good contact with a normal metal makes rise to
a proximity effect where the superconducting correlations leak into the normal
metal. An additional contact close to the first one makes it possible to carry
a supercurrent through the metal. Forcing this supercurrent flow along with an
additional quasiparticle current from one or many normal-metal reservoirs makes
rise to many interesting effects. The supercurrent can be used to tune the
local energy distribution function of the electrons. This mechanism also leads
to finite thermoelectric effects even in the presence of electron-hole
symmetry. Here we review these effects and discuss to which extent the existing
observations of thermoelectric effects in metallic samples can be explained
through the use of the dirty-limit quasiclassical theory.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. 374th WE-Heraus seminar: Spin physics of
superconducting heterostructures, Bad Honnef, 200
Tune in to your emotions: a robust personalized affective music player
The emotional power of music is exploited in a personalized affective music player (AMP) that selects music for mood enhancement. A biosignal approach is used to measure listeners’ personal emotional reactions to their own music as input for affective user models. Regression and kernel density estimation are applied to model the physiological changes the music elicits. Using these models, personalized music selections based on an affective goal state can be made. The AMP was validated in real-world trials over the course of several weeks. Results show that our models can cope with noisy situations and handle large inter-individual differences in the music domain. The AMP augments music listening where its techniques enable automated affect guidance. Our approach provides valuable insights for affective computing and user modeling, for which the AMP is a suitable carrier application
Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy
We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable
and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is
presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and
systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of
globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude,
with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may
have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky
Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the
second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the
HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The
relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level
and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax
measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance
modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are
studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of
low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and
Space Scienc
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