4,974 research outputs found
Andreev bound states and tunneling characteristics of a non-centrosymmetric superconductor
The tunneling characteristics of planar junctions between a normal metal and
a non-centrosymmetric superconductor like CePt3Si are examined. It is shown
that the superconducting phase with mixed parity can give rise to
characteristic zero-bias anomalies in certain junction directions. The origin
of these zero-bias anomalies are Andreev bound states at the interface. The
tunneling characteristics for different directions allow to test the structure
of the parity-mixed pairing state.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Quantitative Simulation of the Superconducting Proximity Effect
A numerical method is developed to calculate the transition temperature of
double or multi-layers consisting of films of super- and normal conductors. The
approach is based on a dynamic interpretation of Gorkov's linear gap equation
and is very flexible. The mean free path of the different metals, transmission
through the interface, ratio of specular reflection to diffusive scattering at
the surfaces, and fraction of diffusive scattering at the interface can be
included. Furthermore it is possible to vary the mean free path and the BCS
interaction NV in the vicinity of the interface. The numerical results show
that the normalized initial slope of an SN double layer is independent of
almost all film parameters except the ratio of the density of states. There are
only very few experimental investigations of this initial slope and they
consist of Pb/Nn double layers (Nn stands for a normal metal). Surprisingly the
coefficient of the initial slope in these experiments is of the order or less
than 2 while the (weak coupling) theory predicts a value of about 4.5. This
discrepancy has not been recognized in the past. The autor suggests that it is
due to strong coupling behavior of Pb in the double layers. The strong coupling
gap equation is evaluated in the thin film limit and yields the value of 1.6
for the coefficient. This agrees much better with the few experimental results
that are available.
PACS: 74.45.+r, 74.62.-c, 74.20.F
Circuit theory of unconventional superconductor junctions
We extend the circuit theory of superconductivity to cover transport and
proximity effect in mesoscopic systems that contain unconventional
superconductor junctions. The approach fully accounts for zero-energy Andreev
bound states forming at the surface of unconventional superconductors. As a
simple application, we investigate the transport properties of a diffusive
normal metal in series with a d-wave superconductor junction. We reveal the
competition between the formation of Andreev bound states and proximity effect,
that depends on the crystal orientation of the junction interface.Comment: 4 page
Nonmonotonic temperature dependence of critical current in diffusive d-wave junctions
We study the Josephson effect in D/I/DN/I/D junctions, where I, DN and D
denote an insulator, a diffusive normal metal and a d-wave superconductor,
respectively.The Josephson current is calculated based on the quasiclassical
Green's function theory with a general boundary condition for unconventional
superconducting junctions. In contrast to s-wave junctions, the product of the
Josephson current and the normal state resistance is enhanced by making the
interface barriers stronger. The Josephson current has a nonmonotonic
temperature dependence due to the competition between the proximity effect and
the midgap Andreev resonant states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Proximity Effect in Normal Metal - High Tc Superconductor Contacts
We study the proximity effect in good contacts between normal metals and high
Tc (d-wave) superconductors. We present theoretical results for the spatially
dependent order parameter and local density of states, including effects of
impurity scattering in the two sides, s-wave pairing interaction in the normal
metal side (attractive or repulsive), as well as subdominant s-wave paring in
the superconductor side. For the [100] orientation, a real combination d+s of
the order parameters is always found. The spectral signatures of the proximity
effect in the normal metal includes a suppression of the low-energy density of
states and a finite energy peak structure. These features are mainly due to the
impurity self-energies, which dominate over the effects of induced pair
potentials. For the [110] orientation, for moderate transparencies, induction
of a d+is order parameter on the superconductor side, leads to a proximity
induced is order parameter also in the normal metal. The spectral signatures of
this type of proximity effect are potentially useful for probing time-reversal
symmetry breaking at a [110] interface.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Theory of thermal and charge transport in diffusive normal metal / superconductor junctions
Thermal and charge transport in the diffusive normal metal(DN) / insulator /
-, - and p-wave superconductor junctions are studied for various
situations, where we have used the Usadel equation with Nazarov's generalized
boundary condition. Thermal and electrical conductance of the junction and the
Lorentz ratio are calculated by varying the magnitudes of the resistance, the
Thouless energy and the magnetic scattering rate in DN, the transparency of the
insulating barrier, and the angle between the normal to the interface and the
crystal axis of d-wave superconductors or the angle between the normal to the
interface and the lobe direction of the p-wave pair potential. New general
expression is derived for the calculation of the thermal conductance. It is
demonstrated that the proximity effect doesn't influence the thermal
conductance while the mid gap Andreev resonant states suppress it. We have also
discussed a possibility of distinguishing pairing symmetries based on the
dependencies of the electrical and thermal conductance on temperatures.Comment: 21 pages, 20 figures, stylistic changes in v
Collective Dynamics of One-Dimensional Charge Density Waves
The effect of disorder on the static and dynamic behaviour of one-dimensional
charge density waves at low temperatures is studied by analytical and numerical
approaches. In the low temperature region the spatial behaviour of the
phase-phase correlation function is dominated by disorder but the roughness
exponent remains the same as in the pure case. Contrary to high dimensional
systems the dependence of the creep velocity on the electric field is described
by an analytic function.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Severe discrepancies between experiment and theory in the superconducting proximity effect
The superconducting proximity effect is investigated for SN double layers in
a regime where the resulting transition temperature T_{c} does not depend on
the mean free paths of the films and, within limits, not on the transparency of
the interface. This regime includes the thin film limit and the normalized
initial slope S_{sn}= (d_{s}/T_{s})|dT_{c}/dd_{n}|. The experimental results
for T_{c} are compared with a numerical simulation which was recently developed
in our group. The results for the SN double layers can be devided into three
groups: (i) When N = Cu, Ag, Au, Mg a disagreement between experiment and
theory by a factor of the order of three is observed, (ii) When N = Cd, Zn, Al
the disagreement between experiment and theory is reduced to a factor of about
1.5, (iii) When N = In, Sn a reasonably good agreement between experiment and
theory is observed
Andreev reflection and enhanced subgap conductance in NbN/Au/InGaAs-InP junctions
We report on the fabrication of highly transparent superconductor/normal
metal/two-dimensional electron gas junctions formed by a superconducting NbN
electrode, a thin (10nm) Au interlayer, and a two-dimensional electron gas in a
InGaAs/InP heterostructure. High junction transparency has been achieved by
exploiting of a newly developed process of Au/NbN evaporation and rapid
annealing at 400C. This allowed us to observe for the first time a decrease in
the differential resistance with pronounced double-dip structure within the
superconducting energy gap in superconductor-2DEG proximity systems. The effect
of a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the 2DEG on the differential
resistance of the interface was studied. It has been found that the reduced
subgap resistance remains in high magnetic fields. Zero-field data are analyzed
within the previously established quasiclassical model for the proximity
effect.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
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