Dephasing of Cooper pairs and subgap electron transport in superconducting hybrids

We argue that electron-electron interactions fundamentally restrict the penetration length of Cooper pairs into a diffusive normal metal (N) from a superconductor (S). At low temperatures, this Cooper pair dephasing length L sub([varphi]) remains finite and does not diverge at T arrow right 0. We ev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics Condensed matter and materials physics, 2012-10, Vol.86 (14), Article 144529
Main Authors: Semenov, Andrew G., Zaikin, Andrei D., Kuzmin, Leonid S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed matter
Conductance
Cooper pairs
Diffusion
Mathematical analysis
Penetration
Superconductivity
Superconductors
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Summary:We argue that electron-electron interactions fundamentally restrict the penetration length of Cooper pairs into a diffusive normal metal (N) from a superconductor (S). At low temperatures, this Cooper pair dephasing length L sub([varphi]) remains finite and does not diverge at T arrow right 0. We evaluate the subgap conductance of NS hybrids in the presence of electron-electron interactions and demonstrate that this length L sub([varphi]) can be directly extracted from conductance measurements in such structures.
ISSN:1098-0121
1550-235X
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.86.144529