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We measure the excitation spectrum of a superconducting atomic contact. In addition to the usual continuum above the superconducting gap, the single particle excitation spectrum contains discrete, spin-degenerate Andreev levels inside the gap. Quasiparticle excitations are induced by a broadband on-chip microwave source and detected by measuring changes in the supercurrent flowing through the atomic contact. Since microwave photons excite quasiparticles in pairs, two types of transitions are observed: Andreev transitions, which consists of putting two quasiparticles in an Andreev level, and transitions to odd states with a single quasiparticle in an Andreev level and the other one in the continuum. In contrast to absorption spectroscopy, supercurrent spectroscopy allows detection of long-lived odd states.
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We have performed microwave spectroscopy of Andreev states in superconducting weak links tailored in an InAs-Al (core-full shell) epitaxially-grown nanowire. The spectra present distinctive features, with bundles of four lines crossing when the superconducting phase difference across the weak link is 0 or $pi.$ We interpret these as arising from zero-field spin-split Andreev states. A simple analytical model, which takes into account the Rashba spin-orbit interaction in a nanowire containing several transverse subbands, explains these features and their evolution with magnetic field. Our results show that the spin degree of freedom is addressable in Josephson junctions, and constitute a first step towards its manipulation.
We present a microscopic theory for the current through a tunnel Josephson junction coupled to a non-linear environment, which consists of an Andreev two-level system coupled to a harmonic oscillator. It models a recent experiment [Bretheau, Girit, Pothier, Esteve, and Urbina, Nature (London) 499, 312 (2013)] on photon spectroscopy of Andreev bound states in a superconducting atomic-size contact. We find the eigenenergies and eigenstates of the environment and derive the current through the junction due to inelastic Cooper pair tunneling. The current-voltage characteristic reveals the transitions between the Andreev bound states, the excitation of the harmonic mode that hybridizes with the Andreev bound states, as well as multi-photon processes. The calculated spectra are in fair agreement with the experimental data.
Two-terminal conductance spectroscopy of superconducting devices is a common tool for probing Andreev and Majorana bound states. Here, we study theoretically a three-terminal setup, with two normal leads coupled to a grounded superconducting terminal. Using a single-electron scattering matrix, we derive the subgap conductance matrix for the normal leads and discuss its symmetries. In particular, we show that the local and the nonlocal elements of the conductance matrix have pairwise identical antisymmetric components. Moreover, we find that the nonlocal elements are directly related to the local BCS charges of the bound states close to the normal probes and we show how the BCS charge of overlapping Majorana bound states can be extracted from experiments.
The superconducting proximity effect in semiconductor nanowires has recently enabled the study of new superconducting architectures, such as gate-tunable superconducting qubits and multiterminal Josephson junctions. As opposed to their metallic counterparts, the electron density in semiconductor nanosystems is tunable by external electrostatic gates providing a highly scalable and in-situ variation of the device properties. In addition, semiconductors with large $g$-factor and spin-orbit coupling have been shown to give rise to exotic phenomena in superconductivity, such as $varphi_0$ Josephson junctions and the emergence of Majorana bound states. Here, we report microwave spectroscopy measurements that directly reveal the presence of Andreev bound states (ABS) in ballistic semiconductor channels. We show that the measured ABS spectra are the result of transport channels with gate-tunable, high transmission probabilities up to $0.9$, which is required for gate-tunable Andreev qubits and beneficial for braiding schemes of Majorana states. For the first time, we detect excitations of a spin-split pair of ABS and observe symmetry-broken ABS, a direct consequence of the spin-orbit coupling in the semiconductor.
We study the surface Andreev bound states (SABSs) and quasiparticle tunneling spectroscopy of three-dimensional (3D) chiral superconductor by changing the surface (interface) misorientation angle of chiral superconductors. We obtain analytical formula of the energy dispersion of SABS for general pair potential when an original 4$times$4 BdG Hamiltonian can be reduced to be two 2$times$2 blocks. The resulting SABS for 3D chiral superconductors with pair potential given by $k_z(k_x + ik_y)^{ u}$ $({ u} = 1, 2)$ has a complicated energy dispersion due to the coexistence of both point and line nodes. We focus on the tunneling spectroscopy of this pairing in the presence of applied magnetic field which induces Doppler shift of quasiparticle spectra. By contrast to previous known Doppler effect in unconventional superconductors, zero bias conductance dip can change into zero bias conductance peak by external magnetic field. We also study SABSs and tunneling spectroscopy for possible pairing symmetries of UPt$_3$ . For this purpose, we extend a standard formula of tunneling conductance of unconventional superconductor junctions in order to treat spin-triplet non-unitary pairings. The magneto tunneling spectroscopy, i.e., tunneling spectroscopy in the presence of magnetic field, can serve as a guide to determine the pairing symmetry of this material.
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