Nonequilibrium electrons in tunnel structures under high-voltage injection

Abstract

We investigate electronic distributions in nonequilibrium tunnel junctions subject to a high voltage bias $V$ under competing electron-electron and electron-phonon relaxation processes. We derive conditions for reaching quasi-equilibrium and show that, though the distribution can still be thermal for low energies where the rate of the electron-electron relaxation exceeds significantly the electron-phonon relaxation rate, it develops a power-law tail at energies of order of $eV$. In a general case of comparable electron-electron and electron-phonon relaxation rates, this tail leads to emission of high-energy phonons which carry away most of the energy pumped in by the injected current.

Revised version

References in corpus (3)

• Quasiparticle relaxation in optically excited high-Q superconducting resonators
• Recombination limited energy relaxation in a BCS superconductor
• Influence of Phonon dimensionality on Electron Energy Relaxation

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Coherent Josephson thermodynamic cycles
• Long-range spin imbalance in mesoscopic superconductors under a Zeeman splitting
• Non-equilibrium spin transport in Zeeman-split superconductors
• Injection of nonequilibrium quasiparticles into Zeeman-split superconductors: a way to create long-range spin imbalance
• Thermodynamics of a phase-driven proximity Josephson junction
• Low temperature transport in tunnel junction arrays: Cascade energy relaxation