Quasiparticle scattering time in superconducting films: from dirty to clean limit

Abstract

We study the quasiparticle energy relaxation processes in superconducting Nb films of different thicknesses corresponding to different electron mean free paths in a state far from equilibrium, that is the highly dissipative flux-flow state driven up to the instability point. From the measured current-voltage curves we derive the vortex critical velocity $v^{\ast }$ for several temperatures. From the $v^{\ast }(T)$ values, the quasiparticle energy relaxation time ${\tau }_{\epsilon }$ is evaluated within the Larkin-Ovchinnikov model and numerical calculations of the quasiparticle energy relaxation rates are carried out to support the experimental findings. Besides the expected constant behavior of ${\tau }_{\epsilon }(T)$ for the dirty samples, we observe a strong temperature dependence of the quasiparticle energy relaxation time in the clean samples. This feature is associated with the increasing contribution from the electron-phonon scattering process as the dirty limit is approached from the clean regime.

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