Excess Currents Larger than the Point Contact Limit in Normal Metal -Superconducting Juncti.pdfVIP

a r X i v : c o n d - m a t / 9 9 0 4 2 1 1 v 1 [ c o n d - m a t .s u p r - c o n ] 1 5 A p r 1 9 9 9 Excess Currents Larger than the Point Contact Limit in Normal Metal -Superconducting Junctions Richard Riedel and Philip F. Bagwell Purdue University School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (February 1, 2008) In a point contact NS junction, perfect Andreev reflection occurs over a range of voltages equal to the superconducting energy gap, producing an excess current of Iexc = (4/3)(2e?/h). If the superconductor has a finite width, rather than the infinite width of the point contact, one cannot neglect superfluid flow inside the superconducting contact. The energy range available for perfect Andreev reflections then becomes larger than the superconducting gap, since superfluid flow alters the dispersion relation inside the finite width superconductor. We find a maximum excess current of approximately (7/3)(2e?/h) when the width of the superconductor is approximately 7/3 times the width of the normal metal. I. INTRODUCTION At a normal metal - superconductor (NS) junction, electrons incident from the normal metal can be scat- tered into time reversed electrons (holes) by the pairing potential. This conversion process is known as Andreev reflection.1 When the NS junction carries an electrical current, Andreev reflection is accompanied by the conver- sion of normal current to supercurrent.2,3 This supercur- rent flow modifies the current-voltage relation in NS and NSN junctions456, superconducting wires7,8, SNS junc- tions9, and NS junctions with a supercurrent parallel to the NS interface10. In this paper we consider the current- voltage relation for NS junctions having a supercurrent flow perpendicular to the NS junction.N MnMs Ms=oo SN Mn=Ms(a)(b) (c) S N MnMs qq S FIG. 1. Different types of NS Junctions. (a) NS point con- tact, (b) N-Narrow S- S, (