Phase-coherent thermoelectricity and non-equilibrium Josephson current in Andreev interferometers

Abstract

We develop a detailed theory describing a non-trivial interplay between non-equilibrium effects and long-range quantum coherence in superconducting hybrid nanostructures exposed to a temperature gradient. We establish a direct relation between thermoelectric and Josephson effects in such structures and demonstrate that at temperatures exceeding the Thouless energy of our device both phase-coherent thermoelectric signal and the supercurrent may be strongly enhanced due to non-equilibrium low energy quasiparticles propagating across the system without any significant phase relaxation. By applying a temperature gradient one can drive the system into a well pronounced $\pi$-junction state, thereby creating novel opportunities for applications of Andreev interferometers.

20 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Thermopower induced by a supercurrent in superconductor-normal-metal structures
• Theory of a large thermoeffect in superconductors doped with magnetic impurities
• Large thermoelectric effect in ballistic Andreev interferometers
• Dephasing of Cooper pairs and subgap electron transport in superconducting hybrids
• Supercurrent dephasing by electron-electron interactions

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Phase-coherent thermoelectricity in superconducting hybrids (Brief Review)
• Bipolar thermoelectricity in S/I/NS and S/I/SN superconducting tunnel junctions