We present a linear-response theory for the thermopower of a single-electron transistor consisting of a superconducting island weakly coupled to two normal-conducting leads (NSN SET). The thermopower shows oscillations with the same periodicity as the conductance and is rather sensitive to the size of the superconducting gap. In particular, the previously studied sawtooth-like shape of the thermopower for a normal-conducting single-electron device is qualitatively changed even for small gap energies.
We present an analysis of the dynamics of a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting single electron transistor (SSET) in the vicinity of the Josephson quasiparticle (JQP) and double Josephson quasiparticle (DJQP) resonances. For weak coupling and wide separation of dynamical timescales, we find that for either superconducting resonance the dynamics of the resonator is given by a Fokker-Planck equation, i.e., the SSET behaves effectively as an equilibrium heat bath, characterised by an effective temperature, which also damps the resonator and renormalizes its frequency. Depending on the gate and drain-source voltage bias points with respect to the superconducting resonance, the SSET can also give rise to an instability in the mechanical resonator marked by negative damping and temperature within the appropriate Fokker-Planck equation. Furthermore, sufficiently close to a resonance, we find that the Fokker-Planck description breaks down. We also point out that there is a close analogy between coupling a nanomechanical resonator to a SSET in the vicinity of the JQP resonance and Doppler cooling of atoms by means of lasers.
We have directly measured the quantum noise of a superconducting single-electron transistor (S-SET) embedded in a microwave resonator consisting of a superconducting LC tank circuit. Using an effective bath description, we find that the S-SET provides damping of the resonator modes proportional to its differential conductance and has an effective temperature that depends strongly on the S-SET bias conditions. In the vicinity of a double Cooper pair resonance, when both resonances are red detuned the S-SET effective temperature can be well below both the ambient temperature and the energy scale of the bias voltage. When blue detuned, the S-SET shows negative differential conductivity,
We have fabricated and measured superconducting single-electron transistors with Al leads and Nb islands. At bias voltages below the gap of Nb we observe clear signatures of resonant tunneling of Cooper pairs, and of Coulomb blockade of the subgap currents due to linewidth broadening of the energy levels in the superconducting density of states of Nb. The experimental results are in good agreement with numerical simulations.
We calculate the charge sensitivity of a recently demonstrated device where the Josephson inductance of a single Cooper-pair transistor is measured. We find that the intrinsic limit to detector performance is set by oscillator quantum noise. Sensitivity better than $10^{-6}$e$/sqrt{mathrm{Hz}}$ is possible with a high $Q$-value $sim 10^3$, or using a SQUID amplifier. The model is compared to experiment, where charge sensitivity $3 times 10^{-5}$e$/sqrt{mathrm{Hz}}$ and bandwidth 100 MHz are achieved.
We demonstrate a sensitive method of charge detection based on radio-frequency readout of the Josephson inductance of a superconducting single-electron transistor. Charge sensitivity $1.4 times 10^{-4}e/sqrt{Hz}$, limited by preamplifier, is achieved in an operation mode which takes advantage of the nonlinearity of the Josephson potential. Owing to reactive readout, our setup has more than two orders of magnitude lower dissipation than the existing method of radio-frequency electrometry. With an optimized sample, we expect uncoupled energy sensitivity below $hbar$ in the same experimental scheme.