We have fabricated superconducting connecting necks of Pb with a scanning
tunneling microscope (STM) and studied their properties under magnetic fields
near the transition to the resistive state. A striking phenomenology is found
with two well defined conduction regimes as a function of the magnetic field.
We discuss the possible origin of this behavior in terms of the interplay
between the field dependence of the quasiparticle charge imbalance length
ΛQ∗ and the length of the neck which is superconducting under field.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; to be published in Physics Letters