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Sahu, M., Bae, M. - H., Rogachev, A., Pekker, D., Wei, T. - C., Shah, N., et al. (2009). Individual topological tunnelling events of a quantum field probed through their macroscopic consequences. Nature Phys., 5, 503–508.
Abstract: Phase slips are topological fluctuations that carry the superconducting order-parameter field between distinct current-carrying states. Owing to these phase slips, superconducting nanowires acquire electrical resistance. In such wires, it is well known that at higher temperatures phase slips occur through the process of thermal barrier-crossing by the order-parameter field. At low temperatures, the general expectation is that phase slips should proceed through quantum tunnelling events, which are known as quantum phase slips. However, resistive measurements have produced evidence both for and against the occurrence of quantum phase slips. Here, we report evidence for the observation of individual quantum phase-slip events in homogeneous ultranarrow wires at high bias currents. We accomplish this through measurements of the distribution of switching currents for which the width exhibits a rather counter-intuitive, monotonic increase with decreasing temperature. Importantly, measurements show that in nanowires with larger critical currents, quantum fluctuations dominate thermal fluctuations up to higher temperatures.
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Ovchinnikov, Y. N., & Varlamov, A. A. (2009). Fluctuation-dissipative phenomena in a narrow superconducting channel carrying current below critical. arXiv, 0910.2659v1, 1–4.
Abstract: The theory of current transport in a narrow superconducting channel accounting for thermal fluctuations is developed. These fluctuations result in the appearance of small but finite dissipation in the sample. The value of corresponding voltage is found as the function of temperature (close to transition temperature) and arbitrary bias current. It is demonstrated that the value of the activation energy (exponential factor in the Arrenius law) when current approaches to the critical one is proportional to (1-J/Jc)^(5/4). This result is in concordance with the one for the affine phenomenon of the Josephson current decay due to the thermal phase fluctuations, where the activation energy proportional (1-J/J_c)^(3/2)(the difference in the exponents is related to the additional current dependence of the order parameter). Found dependence of the activation energy on current explains the enormous discrepancy between the theoretically predicted before and the experimentally observed broadening of the resistive transition.
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Khosropanah P., Baryshev A., Zhang W., Jellema W., Hovenier J.N., Gao G.R., et al. (2009). Phase-locking of a 2.7-THz quantum cascade laser to a microwave reference. Optics Letters, 34, 2958–2960.
Abstract: We demonstrate the phase locking of a 2.7 THz metal–metal waveguide quantum cascade laser (QCL) to an external microwave signal. The reference is the 15th harmonic, generated by a semiconductor superlattice nonlinear device, of a signal at 182 GHz, which itself is generated by a multiplier chain (X12) from a
microwave synthesizer at ~ 15 GHz. Both laser and reference radiations are coupled into a bolometer mixer, resulting in a beat signal, which is fed into a phase-lock loop. The spectral analysis of the beat signal con-firms that the QCL is phase locked. This result opens the possibility to extend heterodyne interferometers into the far-infrared range.
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Marksteiner, M., Divochiy, A., Sclafani, M., Haslinger, P., Ulbricht, H., Korneev, A., et al. (2009). A superconducting NbN detector for neutral nanoparticles. Nanotechnol., 20(45), 455501.
Abstract: We present a proof-of-principle study of superconducting single photon detectors (SSPD) for the detection of individual neutral molecules/nanoparticles at low energies. The new detector is applied to characterize a laser desorption source for biomolecules and allows retrieval of the arrival time distribution of a pulsed molecular beam containing the amino acid tryptophan, the polypeptide gramicidin as well as insulin, myoglobin and hemoglobin. We discuss the experimental evidence that the detector is actually sensitive to isolated neutral particles.
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Елезов, М. С., Корнеев, А. А., Дивочий, А. В., & Гольцман, Г. Н. (2009). Сверхпроводящие однофотонные детекторы с разрешением числа фотонов. In Науч. сессия МИФИ (pp. 47–58).
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