High-energy quasiparticle injection into mesoscopic superconductors
- 18 January 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Nanotechnology
- Vol. 16 (4), 404-408
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-00834-8
Abstract
At non-zero temperatures, superconductors contain excitations known as Bogoliubov quasiparticles (QPs). The mesoscopic dynamics of QPs inform the design of quantum information processors, among other devices. Knowledge of these dynamics stems from experiments in which QPs are injected in a controlled fashion, typically at energies comparable to the pairing energy1,2,3,4,5. Here we perform tunnel spectroscopy of a mesoscopic superconductor under high electric fields. We observe QP injection due to field-emitted electrons with 106 times the pairing energy, an unexplored regime of QP dynamics. Upon application of a gate voltage, the QP injection decreases the critical current and, at sufficiently high electric field, a field-emission current (6. We expect that high-energy injection will be useful for developing QP-tolerant quantum information processors, will allow rapid control of resonator quality factors and will enable the design of electric-field-controlled superconducting devices with new functionality.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Science Foundation (DMR-1708688)
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