Thermal and quantum depletion of superconductivity in narrow junctions created by controlled electromigration.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26879257.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms10560 and PMC identifier 4757767.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Superconducting nanowires currently attract great interest due to their application in single-photon detectors and quantum-computing circuits. In this context, it is of fundamental importance to understand the detrimental fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter as the wire width shrinks. In this paper, we use controlled electromigration to narrow down aluminium nanoconstrictions. We demonstrate that a transition from thermally assisted phase slips to quantum phase slips takes place when the cross section becomes less than ∼150 nm(2). In the regime dominated by quantum phase slips the nanowire loses its capacity to carry current without dissipation, even at the lowest possible temperature. We also show that the constrictions exhibit a negative magnetoresistance at low-magnetic fields, which can be attributed to the suppression of superconductivity in the contact leads. These findings reveal perspectives of the proposed fabrication method for exploring various fascinating superconducting phenomena in atomic-size contacts.