Electron and hole transmission through superconductor - normal metal interfaces
arXiv:1209.2629 · doi:10.3938/jkps.62.1575
Abstract
We have investigated the transmission of electrons and holes through interfaces between superconducting aluminum (Tc = 1.2 K) and various normal non-magnetic metals (copper, gold, palladium, platinum, and silver) using Andreev-reflection spectroscopy at T = 0.1 K. We analyzed the point contacts with the modified BTK theory that includes Dynes' lifetime as a fitting parameter G in addition to superconducting energy gap 2D and normal reflection described by Z. For contact areas from 1 nm^2 to 10000 nm^2 the BTK Z parameter was 0.5, corresponding to transmission coefficients of about 80 %, independent of the normal metal. The very small variation of Z indicates that the interfaces have a negligible dielectric tunneling barrier. Fermi surface mismatch does not account for the observed transmission coefficient.
9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Magnetism ICM2012 (Busan 2012)
References in corpus (4)
- Andreev Reflection in Heavy-Fermion Superconductors and Order Parameter Symmetry in CeCoIn_5
- Orientation-Dependent Transparency of Metallic Interfaces
- Perpendicular-current Studies of Electron Transport Across Metal/Metal Interfaces
- Sensitivity of Ag/Al Interface Specific Resistances to Interfacial Intermixing
Cited by in corpus (4)
- Anatomy of point-contact Andreev reflection spectroscopy from the experimental point of view (review)
- Andreev reflection and Yanson point-contact spectroscopy of a Zn single crystal
- Mechanisms of normal reflection at metal interfaces studied by Andreev-reflection spectroscopy
- Andreev-reflection spectroscopy with superconducting indium - a case study