Do you want to publish a course? Click here

Number fluctuations of sparse quasiparticles in a superconductor

122   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 Added by Pieter de Visser
 Publication date 2011
  fields Physics
and research's language is English




Ask ChatGPT about the research

We have directly measured quasiparticle number fluctuations in a thin film superconducting Al resonator in thermal equilibrium. The spectrum of these fluctuations provides a measure of both the density and the lifetime of the quasiparticles. We observe that the quasiparticle density decreases exponentially with decreasing temperature, as theoretically predicted, but saturates below 160 mK to 25-55 per cubic micron. We show that this saturation is consistent with the measured saturation in the quasiparticle lifetime, which also explains similar observations in qubit decoherence times.



rate research

Read More

Experimentally and mysteriously, the concentration of quasiparticles in a gapped superconductor at low temperatures always by far exceeds its equilibrium value. We study the dynamics of localized quasiparticles in superconductors with a spatially fluctuating gap edge. The competition between phonon-induced quasiparticle recombination and generation by a weak non-equilibrium agent results in an upper bound for the concentration that explains the mystery.
In this communication, we numerically studied disordered quantum transport in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator-superconductor junction based on the effective edge model approach. In particular, we focus on the parameter regime with the free mean path due to elastic scattering much smaller than the sample size and discuss disordered transport behaviors in the presence of different numbers of chiral edge modes, as well as non-chiral metallic modes. Our numerical results demonstrate that the presence of multiple chiral edge modes or non-chiral metallic modes will lead to a strong Andreev conversion, giving rise to half-electron half-hole transmission through the junction structure, in sharp contrast to the suppression of Andreev conversion in the single chiral edge mode case. Our results suggest the importance of additional transport modes in the quantum anomalous Hall insulator-superconductor junction and will guide the future transport measurements.
We report a study of the de Haas-van Alphen effect in the normal state of the ferromagnetic superconductor ZrZn2. Our results are generally consistent with an LMTO band structure calculation which predicts four exchange-split Fermi surface sheets. Quasiparticle effective masses are enhanced by a factor of about 4.9 implying a strong coupling to magnetic excitations or phonons. Our measurements provide insight in to the mechanism for superconductivity and unusual thermodynamic properties of ZrZn2.
The point-contact spectra of tantalum in the superconducting state, with $Ta$, $Cu$, and $Au$ counterelectrodes, have been studied. We discovered some new distinctive features, whose position on the $eV$ axis is determined by the critical power required for the injection of nonequilibriumquasiparticles. At this level of power the band gap $Delta $ decreases abruptly in the vicinity of the contact. A correction to the point-contact spectrum, with the sign opposite to that of the usual correction, arises in the region of phonon energies. The maxima in the $Ta$ spectrum become sharper and their position on the energy axis becomes stabilized near the values $e{{V}_{ph}}=7.0$, 11.3, 15.5, and 18 $meV$, which correspond to low phonon group velocities $partial omega /partial qsimeq 0$ in $Ta$. This is confirmed by the existence of corresponding flattenings on the dispersion relations $omega (q)$ of lattice vibrations. Slow phonons are created near the $N-S$ interface in quasiparticle recombination and relaxation processes and cause a decrease in $Delta $ and an increase in the differential resistance in the vicinity of $e{{V}_{ph}}$. An excess quasiparticle charge is accumulated in the region of the contact, producing a correction to the resistance, which decreases as $eV$, $T$, and $H$ increase. These mechanisms are particularly effective in dirty contacts, thus permitting phonon spectroscopy in the superconducting state even when the current flow occurs in a nearly thermal mode.
In this letter, we address the quasiparticle dynamics in thin aluminium, which is critical to improve the sensitivity of superconducting detectors and the coherence time of qubits. We have measured temperature dependent quasiparticle fluctuations in a small Al volume, embedded in a NbTiN superconducting microwave resonator. When the quasiparticle lifetime saturates at low temperatures, we observe a noise level reduction of a factor $sim$100, from which we deduce that the number of quasiparticles does not saturate, but continues to reduce exponentially with temperature. Comparing resonators on substrate and membrane, we show that the saturation lifetime does not depend on phonon trapping. Quasiparticle trapping is consistent with this behavior, when on-trap recombination limits the observed lifetime. Counter-intuitively, this effect improves the sensitivity of single-photon detectors.
comments
Fetching comments Fetching comments
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا