Yang, Y., Fedorov, G., Shafranjuk, S. E., Klapwijk, T. M., Cooper, B. K., Lewis, R. M., et al. (2015). Electronic transport and possible superconductivity at Van Hove singularities in carbon nanotubes. Nano Lett., 15(12), 7859–7866.
Abstract: Van Hove singularities (VHSs) are a hallmark of reduced dimensionality, leading to a divergent density of states in one and two dimensions and predictions of new electronic properties when the Fermi energy is close to these divergences. In carbon nanotubes, VHSs mark the onset of new subbands. They are elusive in standard electronic transport characterization measurements because they do not typically appear as notable features and therefore their effect on the nanotube conductance is largely unexplored. Here we report conductance measurements of carbon nanotubes where VHSs are clearly revealed by interference patterns of the electronic wave functions, showing both a sharp increase of quantum capacitance, and a sharp reduction of energy level spacing, consistent with an upsurge of density of states. At VHSs, we also measure an anomalous increase of conductance below a temperature of about 30 K. We argue that this transport feature is consistent with the formation of Cooper pairs in the nanotube.
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Galin, M. A., Klushin, A. M., Kurin, V. V., Seliverstov, S. V., Finkel, M. I., Goltsman, G. N., et al. (2015). Towards local oscillators based on arrays of niobium Josephson junctions. Supercond. Sci. Technol., 28(5), 055002 (1 to 7).
Abstract: Various applications in the field of terahertz technology are in urgent need of compact, wide-tunable solid-state continuous wave radiation sources with a moderate power. However, satisfactory solutions for the THz frequency range are scarce yet. Here we report on coherent radiation from a large planar array of Josephson junctions (JJs) in the frequency range between 0.1 and 0.3 THz. The external resonator providing the synchronization of JJ array is identified as a straight fragment of a single-strip-line containing the junctions themselves. We demonstrate a prototype of the quasioptical heterodyne receiver with the JJ array as a local oscillator and a hot-electron bolometer mixer.
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Seliverstov, S., Maslennikov, S., Ryabchun, S., Finkel, M., Klapwijk, T. M., Kaurova, N., et al. (2015). Fast and sensitive terahertz direct detector based on superconducting antenna-coupled hot electron bolometer. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 25(3), 2300304.
Abstract: We characterize superconducting antenna-coupled hot-electron bolometers for direct detection of terahertz radiation operating at a temperature of 9.0 K. The estimated value of responsivity obtained from lumped-element theory is strongly different from the measured one. A numerical calculation of the detector responsivity is developed, using the Euler method, applied to the system of heat balance equations written in recurrent form. This distributed element model takes into account the effect of nonuniform heating of the detector along its length and provides results that are in better agreement with the experiment. At a signal frequency of 2.5 THz, the measured value of the optical detector noise equivalent power is 2.0 × 10-13 W · Hz-0.5. The value of the bolometer time constant is 35 ps. The corresponding energy resolution is about 3 aJ. This detector has a sensitivity similar to that of the state-of-the-art sub-millimeter detectors operating at accessible cryogenic temperatures, but with a response time several orders of magnitude shorter.
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Kozorezov, A. G., Lambert, C., Marsili, F., Stevens, M. J., Verma, V. B., Stern, J. A., et al. (2015). Quasiparticle recombination in hotspots in superconducting current-carrying nanowires. Phys. Rev. B, 92(6).
Abstract: We describe a kinetic model of recombination of non-equilibrium quasiparticles generated by single photon absorption in superconducting current-carrying nanowires. The model is developed to interpret two-photon detection experiments in which a single photon does not possess sufficient energy for breaking superconductivity at a fixed low bias current. We show that quasiparticle self- recombination in relaxing hotspot dominates diffusion expansion effects and explains the observed strong bias current, wavelength and temperature dependencies of hotspot relaxation in tungsten silicide superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors.
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Kardakova, A. I., Coumou, P. C. J. J., Finkel, M. I., Morozov, D. V., An, P. P., Goltsman, G. N., et al. (2015). Electron–phonon energy relaxation time in thin strongly disordered titanium nitride films. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 25(3), 1–4.
Abstract: We have measured the energy relaxation times from the electron bath to the phonon bath in strongly disordered TiN films grown by atomic layer deposition. The measured values of τ eph vary from 12 to 91 ns. Over a temperature range from 3.4 to 1.7 K, they follow T -3 temperature dependence, which are consistent with values of τ eph reported previously for sputtered TiN films. For the most disordered film, with an effective elastic mean free path of 0.35 nm, we find a faster relaxation and a stronger temperature dependence, which may be an additional indication of the influence of strong disorder on a superconductor.
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