Proximity effect in planar TiN-Silicon junctions

Abstract

We measured the low temperature subgap resistance of titanium nitride (superconductor, Tc=4.6K)/highly doped silicon (degenerated semiconductor) SIN junctions, where I stands for the Schottky barrier. At low energies, the subgap conductance is enhanced due to coherent backscattering of the electrons towards the interface by disorder in the silicon (''reflectionless tunneling''). This Zero Bias Anomaly (ZBA) is destroyed by the temperature or the magnetic field above 250mK or 0.04T respectively. The overall differential resistance behavior (vs temperature and voltage) is compared to existing theories and values for the depairing rate and the barrier transmittance are extracted. Such an analysis leads us to introduce an effective temperature for the electrons and to discuss heat dissipation through the SIN interface.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, added references and minor corrections. Accepted to Journal of Low Temperature Physic