Search results for "Quasiparticle"
showing 10 items of 280 documents
Thermalization efficiency of superconducting absorbers for thermal X-ray microcalorimeters
2004
The persistence of long living quasiparticles created in the energy thermalization process can affect the performances of a thermal X-ray microcalorimeter with superconducting absorber. Numerical simulations indicate that in an ab- sorber made of high-purity Sn, operated at temperatures lower than 100 mK, up to 60% of the deposited energy can remain trapped in the quasiparticle system for a time much longer than the time scale of the thermal sensor response, producing a reduction of the SNR of the detector. Other pure superconductors can present the same problem and therefore a microscopic analysis of the physical properties can be useful to identify suitable absorbing materials and optimiz…
Self-consistent calculation of the flux-flow conductivity in diffusive superconductors
2017
In the framework of Keldysh-Usadel kinetic theory, we study the temperature dependence of flux-flow conductivity (FFC) in diffusive superconductors. By using self-consistent vortex solutions we find the exact values of dimensionless parameters that determine the diffusion-controlled FFC both in the limit of the low temperatures and close to the critical one. Taking into account the electron-phonon scattering we study the transition between flux-flow regimes controlled either by the diffusion or the inelastic relaxation of non-equilibrium quasiparticles. We demonstrate that the inelastic electron-phonon relaxation leads to the strong suppression of FFC as compared to the previous estimates m…
Frequency-dependent relaxation rate in superconductingYBa2Cu3O6+δ
2000
The submillimeter-wave $3 {\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}l\ensuremath{\nu}l40 {\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ complex conductivity of the reduced ${\mathrm{YBa}}_{2}{\mathrm{Cu}}_{3}{\mathrm{O}}_{6+\ensuremath{\delta}}$ film ${(T}_{C}=56.5 \mathrm{K})$ was investigated for temperatures $4 \mathrm{K}lTl300 \mathrm{K}$ and compared to the properties of the same film in the optimally doped state. The frequency dependence of the effective quasiparticle scattering rate $1/{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{*}(\ensuremath{\nu})$ was extracted from the spectra. $1/{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{*}$ is shown to be frequency independent at low frequencies and high temperatures. A gradual change to $1/{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{…
Nature of Heavy Quasiparticles in Magnetically Ordered Heavy FermionsUPd2Al3andUPt3
2002
The optical conductivity of the heavy fermions $\mathrm{UPd}{}_{2}{\mathrm{Al}}_{3}$ and $\mathrm{UPt}{}_{3}$ has been measured in the energy range from 0.04 to 5 meV. In both compounds a well pronounced pseudogap of less than 1 meV develops in the optical response at low temperatures; we relate this to the antiferromagnetic ordering. From the energy dependence of the effective mass and scattering rate we conclude that the enhancement of the mass mainly occurs below the energy which is related to magnetic correlations between the local magnetic moments and the itinerant electrons. This implies that the magnetic order in these compounds is the prerequisite to the formation of the heavy quasi…
Microscopic model for multiple flux transitions in mesoscopic superconducting loops
2006
A microscopic model is constructed which is able to describe multiple magnetic flux transitions as observed in recent ultra-low temperature tunnel experiments on an aluminum superconducting ring with normal metal - insulator - superconductor junctions [Phys. Rev. B \textbf{70}, 064514 (2004)]. The unusual multiple flux quantum transitions are explained by the formation of metastable states with large vorticity. Essential in our description is the modification of the pairing potential and the superconducting density of states by a sub-critical value of the persistent current which modulates the measured tunnel current. We also speculate on the importance of the injected non-equilibrium quasi…
Spectral broadening by quasiparticle pile-up in X-ray microcalorimeters with superconducting absorbers
2004
Long-living quasiparticles can pile-up in a superconducting absorber of an X-ray microcalorimeter when photons are detected at high count rate. These quasiparticles can give a non-negligible contribution to the total heat capacity of the detector thus affecting the pulse height spectrum of detected photons. We investigated this effect with numerical simulations and evaluated the resulting spectral broadening as a function of the photon absorption rate, and the heat capacity of the detector for a NTD germanium microcalorimeter with pure Sn absorber.
Test of x-ray microcalorimeters with bilayer absorbers
2008
Superconducting absorbers for thermal X-ray microcalorimeters should convert into thermalized phonons and transfer to the thermal sensor most of the energy deposited by single photons, on a time scale as short as a few tens of microseconds. Since deposition of X-ray energy in a superconductor produces quasiparticles by breaking up of Cooper pairs, the thermalization efficiency depends on the time scale on which they survive within the absorber volume, trapping part of the absorbed energy. According to the predicted values of their microscopic parameters, in many standard type-I superconducting metals the quasiparticle life time at very low temperatures results too long to allow for recombin…
Characterisation of Cooper Pair Boxes for Quantum Bits
2001
We have fabricated and measured single Cooper pair boxes (SCB) using superconducting single electron transistors (SET) as electrometers. The box storage performance for Cooper pairs was measured by observing the changes in the SCB island potential. We are also fabricating niobium structures, which are expected to have less problems with quasiparticle contamination than similar aluminium based devices because of the high critical temperature. The use of niobium may also reduce decoherence and thereby increase the time available for quantum logic operations.
Negative magnetoresistance of ultra-narrow superconducting nanowires in the resistive state
2008
We present a phenomenological model qualitatively explaining negative magnetoresistance in quasi-one-dimensional superconducting channels in the resistive state. The model is based on the assumption that fluctuations of the order parameter (phase slips) are responsible for the finite effective resistance of a narrow superconducting wire sufficiently close to the critical temperature. Each fluctuation is accompanied by an instant formation of a quasi-normal region of the order of the non-equilibrium quasiparticle relaxation length 'pinned' to the core of the phase slip. The effective time-averaged voltage measured in experiment is a sum of two terms. First one is the conventional contributio…
Elementary excitations in superfluidH3e-H4emixtures
2010
We have studied the dynamic structure function of superfluid $^{3}\text{H}\text{e-}^{4}\text{H}\text{e}$ mixtures at zero temperature as a function of pressure and $^{3}\text{H}\text{e}$ concentration. Results obtained in the full random-phase approximation (RPA) plus density-functional theory and in a generalized Landau-Pomeranchuk approach are presented and compared with experiment. Analytic expressions for several sum rules of the dynamic structure functions have been determined, and have been used to obtain average energies of the collective excitations. In the RPA approach, the dispersion relation of the collective modes shows typical features of level repulsion between zero-soundlike …