Quantum Phase Slips and Transport in Ultrathin Superconducting Wires

Zaikin, Andrei D.; Golubev, Dmitrii S.; Otterlo, Anne van; Zimányi, Gergely T.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.78.1552

Cited by 297 publications

(560 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…In wires with diameter below 10 nm and very high resistance, the energy barrier is small enough that phase slip by quantum tunnelling can be expected 2,3 . Wires of Mo-Ge deposited on suspended carbon nanotubes have been studied [3][4][5] , and the results are in reasonable agreement with microscopic calculations of phase-slip rates 7,8 . All experiments consisted of passing a small d.c. current through the sample and measuring the voltage.…”

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confidence: 54%

Superconducting nanowires as quantum phase-slip junctions

2006

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F or a superconductor, charge and phase are dual quantum variables. A phase-slip event in a superconducting nanowire changes the phase difference over the wire by 2π; it is the dual process to Cooper-pair tunnelling in a Josephson junction. Phase slip by thermal activation at high temperatures is well understood 1 . Phase slip by quantum tunnelling at low temperatures is considered plausible 2,3 , but experiments on the resistance of nanowires 4,5 are inconclusive on this point. Büchler et al. 6 conclude that successive quantum phase slip (QPS) events can be coherent. Here, we demonstrate that, if it exists, coherent QPS is the exact dual to Josephson tunnelling. A narrow nanowire should act as a QPS junction that shows kinetic capacitance, a plasma resonance and current plateaus of interest for nanoelectronic applications. We suggest feasible experiments to unequivocally confirm the existence for coherent QPS.Phase slip in a thin superconducting wire occurs on the scale of the superconducting coherence length. Phase slip by thermal activation 1 is observed as a resistive tail below the critical temperature. In wires with diameter below 10 nm and very high resistance, the energy barrier is small enough that phase slip by quantum tunnelling can be expected 2,3 . Wires of Mo-Ge deposited on suspended carbon nanotubes have been studied [3][4][5] , and the results are in reasonable agreement with microscopic calculations of phase-slip rates 7,8 . All experiments consisted of passing a small d.c. current through the sample and measuring the voltage. As each phase-slip event in the presence of a current I releases an energy IΦ 0 , where Φ 0 = h/2e is the flux quantum, with h the Planck constant and e the electron charge, such measurements are dissipative. Unambiguous experimental evidence of QPS is still absent. It has been concluded 5 that results can be described by thermally activated phase slip for wires with larger cross-section, and as mesoscopic diffusive normal-metal conductance for the weaker wires. The theoretical analysis is complicated by the fact that the behaviour of the bosonic superfluid may be overshadowed by the fermionic effects of localization and interaction. The superconducting energy gap in the wire may be suppressed and quasiparticles may be generated. However, we are not aware of any reason that would forbid QPS to be a physical reality. We thus assume that coherent QPS may take place, that it is characterized by a transition amplitude E S /2 and that no quasiparticles are present (E S < Δ, Δ being the superconducting energy gap). On the The diamond-shaped symbol in the QPS qubit circuit represents the quantum phase-slip process. The capacitive energy is E = E C (n − n g ) 2 and the inductivebasis of Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB)-type estimates 3 and microscopic calculations 7 , we assume that the transition amplitude for QPS in practical superconducting nanowires of 1 μm length can be as high as E S /h = 100 GHz. Wires in which significant QPS occurs have large kinetic inductance L and smal...

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confidence: 54%

Superconducting nanowires as quantum phase-slip junctions

2006

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“…As a physical phenomenon, it should be analogous to the decay of magnetic flux trapped in a narrow superconducting ring. According to both theory [58,59,60] and experiment [61,62] is not only a physical similarity of this process with quantum-phase slip in superconductors but also, as we discussed in [29], a fairly close formal analogy as well.…”

Section: Physical Breakdown Of Alfvén's Theorem?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The breakdown of Alfvén’s theorem in ideal plasma flows: Necessary conditions and physical conjectures

Eyink

Aluie

2006

Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena

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This paper presents both rigorous results and physical theory on the breakdown of magnetic flux conservation for ideal plasmas, by nonlinear effects. Our analysis is based upon an effective equation for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modes at length-scales > ℓ, with smaller scales eliminated, as in renormalization-group methodology. We prove that flux-conservation can be violated for an arbitrarily small length-scale ℓ, and in the absence of any non-ideality, but only if singular current sheets and vortex sheets both exist and intersect in sets of large enough dimension. This result gives analytical support to and rigorous constraints on theories of fast turbulent reconnection. Mathematically, our theorem is analogous to

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“…There has been an intense activity to establish the existence of quantum phase slips (QPS) related to macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] and to study quantum phase transitions between possibly superconducting, metallic and insulating phases in nanowires 4,[12][13][14][15][16][17] . A dissipation-controlled quantum phase transition [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] has been predicted in junctions of superconducting nanowires. Recently the importance of taking into account Joule-heating caused by dissipative phase-slip fluctuations has also been argued and demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally 10,11,[26][27][28] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of superconducting nanowires shunted with an external resistor

et al. 2012

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We present the first study of superconducting nanowires shunted with an external resistor, geared towards understanding and controlling coherence and dissipation in nanowires. The dynamics is probed by measuring the evolution of the V -I characteristics and the distributions of switching and retrapping currents upon varying the shunt resistor and temperature. Theoretical analysis of the experiments indicates that as the value of the shunt resistance is decreased, the dynamics turns more coherent presumably due to stabilization of phase-slip centers in the wire and furthermore the switching current approaches the Bardeen's prediction for equilibrium depairing current. By a detailed comparison between theory and experiment, we make headway into identifying regimes in which the quasi-one-dimensional wire can effectively be described by a zero-dimensional circuit model analogous to the RCSJ (resistively and capacitively shunted Josephson junction) model of Stewart and McCumber. Besides its fundamental significance, our study has implications for a range of promising technological applications.

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Quantum Phase Slips and Transport in Ultrathin Superconducting Wires

Cited by 297 publications

References 20 publications

Superconducting nanowires as quantum phase-slip junctions

Superconducting nanowires as quantum phase-slip junctions

The breakdown of Alfvén’s theorem in ideal plasma flows: Necessary conditions and physical conjectures

Dynamics of superconducting nanowires shunted with an external resistor

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