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Sidorova M, Semenov AD, Hübers H-W, Ilin K, Siegel M, Charaev I, et al. Electron energy relaxation in disordered superconducting NbN films. Phys Rev B. 2020;102(5):054501 (1 to 15).
Abstract: We report on the inelastic-scattering rate of electrons on phonons and relaxation of electron energy studied by means of magnetoconductance, and photoresponse, respectively, in a series of strongly disordered superconducting NbN films. The studied films with thicknesses in the range from 3 to 33 nm are characterized by different Ioffe-Regel parameters but an almost constant product qTl (qT is the wave vector of thermal phonons and l is the elastic mean free path of electrons). In the temperature range 14–30 K, the electron-phonon scattering rates obey temperature dependencies close to the power law 1/τe−ph∼Tn with the exponents n≈3.2–3.8. We found that in this temperature range τe−ph and n of studied films vary weakly with the thickness and square resistance. At 10 K electron-phonon scattering times are in the range 11.9–17.5 ps. The data extracted from magnetoconductance measurements were used to describe the experimental photoresponse with the two-temperature model. For thick films, the photoresponse is reasonably well described without fitting parameters, however, for thinner films, the fit requires a smaller heat capacity of phonons. We attribute this finding to the reduced density of phonon states in thin films at low temperatures. We also show that the estimated Debye temperature in the studied NbN films is noticeably smaller than in bulk material.
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Shah J, Pinczuk A, Gossard AC, Wiegmann W. Energy-loss rates for hot electrons and holes in GaAs quantum wells. Phys Rev Lett. 1985;54:2045–8.
Abstract: We report the first direct determination of carrier-energy-loss rates in a semiconductor. These measurements provide fundamental insight into carrier-phonon interactions in semiconductors. Unexpectedly large differences are found in the energy-loss rates for electrons and holes in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. This large difference results from an anomalously low electron-energy-loss rate, which we attribute to the presence of nonequilibrium optical phonons rather than the effects of reduced dimensionality or dynamic screening.
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Sidorova M, Semenov A, Hübers H-W, Kuzmin A, Doerner S, Ilin K, et al. Timing jitter in photon detection by straight superconducting nanowires: Effect of magnetic field and photon flux. Phys Rev B. 2018;98(13):134504 (1 to 14).
Abstract: We studied the effects of the external magnetic field and photon flux on timing jitter in photon detection by straight superconducting NbN nanowires. At two wavelengths 800 and 1560 nm, statistical distribution in the appearance times of photon counts exhibits Gaussian shape at small times and an exponential tail at large times. The characteristic exponential time is larger for photons with smaller energy and increases with external magnetic field while variations in the Gaussian part of the distribution are less pronounced. Increasing photon flux drives the nanowire from the discrete quantum detection regime to the uniform bolometric regime that averages out fluctuations of the total number of nonequilibrium electrons created by the photon and drastically reduces jitter. The difference between standard deviations of Gaussian parts of distributions for these two regimes provides the measure for the strength of electron-number fluctuations; it increases with the photon energy. We show that the two-dimensional hot-spot detection model explains qualitatively the effect of magnetic field.
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Boogaard GR, Verbruggen AH, Belzig W, Klapwijk T.M. Resistance of superconducting nanowires connected to normal-metal leads. Phys Rev B. 2004;69:220503(R)(1–4).
Abstract: We study experimentally the low temperature resistance of superconducting nanowires connected to normal metal reservoirs. Wefind that a substantial fraction of the nanowires is resistive, down to the lowest tempera-ture measured, indicative of an intrinsic boundary resistance due to the Andreev-conversion of normal current to supercurrent. The results are successfully analyzed in terms of the kinetic equations for diffusive superconductors.
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Vercruyssen N, Verhagen TGA, Flokstra MG, Pekola JP, Klapwijk TM. Evanescent states and nonequilibrium in driven superconducting nanowires. Phys Rev B. 2012;85:224503(1–10).
Abstract: We study the nonlinear response of current transport in a superconducting diffusive nanowire between normal reservoirs. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally the existence of two different superconducting states appearing when the wire is driven out of equilibrium by an applied bias, called the global and bimodal superconducting states. The different states are identified by using two-probe measurements of the wire, and measurements of the local density of states with tunneling probes. The analysis is performed within the framework of the quasiclassical kinetic equations for diffusive superconductors.
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