Deterministic phase slips in mesoscopic superconducting rings

Abstract

The properties of one-dimensional superconductors are strongly influenced by topological fluctuations of the order parameter, known as phase slips, which cause the decay of persistent current in superconducting rings and the appearance of resistance in superconducting wires. Despite extensive work, quantitative studies of phase slips have been limited by uncertainty regarding the order parameter's free energy landscape. Here we show detailed agreement between measurements of the persistent current in isolated flux-biased rings and Ginzburg-Landau theory over a wide range of temperature, magnetic field, and ring size; this agreement provides a quantitative picture of the free energy landscape. We also demonstrate that phase slips occur deterministically as the barrier separating two competing order parameter configurations vanishes. These results will enable studies of quantum and thermal phase slips in a well-characterized system and will provide access to outstanding questions regarding the nature of one-dimensional superconductivity.

7 pages, 4 figures main text; 11 pages supplemental material

References in corpus (8)

• Persistent currents in normal metal rings
• Magnetic response of mesoscopic superconducting rings with two order parameters
• Fluctuation Superconductivity in Mesoscopic Aluminum Rings
• Attojoule calorimetry of mesoscopic superconducting loops
• Coherent Flux Tunneling Through NbN Nanowires
• Quantum phase slip phenomenon in ultra-narrow superconducting nanorings
• Formation of Quantum Phase Slip Pairs in Superconducting Nanowires
• Keldysh Ginzburg-Landau action of fluctuating superconductors

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Preliminary demonstration of a persistent Josephson phase-slip memory cell with topological protection
• Asymmetric nanowire SQUID: linear CPR, stochastic switching, and symmetries
• Thermal superconducting quantum interference proximity transistor
• Dynamics and heat diffusion of Abrikosov's vortex-antivortex pairs during an annihilation process
• Imaging phase slip dynamics in micron-size superconducting rings
• Dynamical regimes of ultrafast kinematic vortices in the resistive state of mesoscopic superconductors
• A development of superconducting differential double contour interferometer
• Metastable states and hidden phase slips in nanobridge SQUIDs
• Controllable tunnelling of single flux-quanta mediated by quantum phase-slip in disordered superconducting loops
• Influence of pinning centers of different natures onsurrounding vortices
• A problem with the conservation law observed in macroscopic quantum phenomena is a consequence of violation of the correspondence principle
• Phase slip statistics of a single isolated flux-biased superconducting ring
• Proximity-induced minimum radius of superconducting thin rings closed by the Josephson 0 or pi junction
• Metastability and bifurcation in superconducting nanorings
• Quantum interference in asymmetric superconducting nanowire loops
• Phase relations in superconductor-normal metal-superconductor tunnel junctions
• Persistent current noise in narrow Josephson junctions
• Boundary conditions for the order parameter and the proximity influenced internal phase differences in double superconducting junctions
• The Meissner effect does not require radial charge flow
• Kinematic Vortices induced by defects in Gapless Superconductors
• Vortex-driven periodic and aperiodic magnetoresistance oscillations in cuprates
• Quantum Mechanics of an Abrikosov Vortex in Nanofabricated Pinning Potential