Subharmonic gap structure in d-wave superconductors

Abstract

We present a self-consistent theory of current-voltage characteristics of d-wave/d-wave contacts at arbitrary transparency. In particular, we address the open problem of the observation of subharmonic gap structure (SGS) in cuprate junctions. Our analysis shows that: (i) the SGS is possible in d-wave superconductors, (ii) the existence of bound states within the gap results in an even-odd effect in the SGS, (iii) elastic scattering mechanisms, like impurities or surface roughness, may suppress the SGS, and (iv) in the presence of a magnetic field the Doppler shift of the Andreev bound states leads to a very peculiar splitting of the SGS, which is an unambiguous fingerprint of d-wave superconductivity.

Revtex4, 4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Andreev bound states in high-$T_c$ superconducting junctions
• Quasiclassical description of transport through superconducting contacts

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