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arXiv:2204.01356 · Communications Physics

Dominant andreev reflection through nonlinear radio-frequency transport

Tingyu Zhang, Hiroyuki Tajima, Yuta Sekino, Shun Uchino, Haozhao Liang

Published Apr 27, 2023• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract It is found that Andreev reflection provides a deterministic teleportation process at an ideal normal-superconductor interface, making it behave like an information mirror. However, it is challenging to control the Andreev reflection in a spatially-separated junction due to the mode mixing at the interface. We theoretically propose the laser-induced Andreev reflection between two-component Fermi superfluid and normal states without mode mixing via spatially-uniform Rabi couplings. By analyzing the tunneling current up to the fourth order, we find that the Andreev current exhibits unconventional non-Ohmic transport at zero temperature. The Andreev current gives the only contribution in the synthetic junction system at zero detunings regardless of the ratio of the chemical potential bias to the superfluid gap, which is in sharp contrast to that in conventional junctions. Our result may give a potential impact on theoretical and experimental study of quantum many-body phenomena, and also pave a way for understanding the black hole information paradox through the Andreev reflection as a quantum-information mirror.

DOI
10.1038/s42005-023-01199-9

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Abstract It is found that Andreev reflection provides a deterministic teleportation process at an ideal normal-superconductor interface, making it behave like an information mirror. However, it is challenging to control the Andreev reflection in a spatially-separated junction due to the mode mixing at the interface. We theoretically propose the laser-induced Andreev reflection between two-component Fermi superfluid and normal states without mode mixing via spatially-uniform Rabi couplings. By analyzing the tunneling current up to the fourth order, we find that the Andreev current exhibits unconventional non-Ohmic transport at zero temperature. The Andreev current gives the only contribution in the synthetic junction system at zero detunings regardless of the ratio of the chemical potential bias to the superfluid gap, which is in sharp contrast to that in conventional junctions. Our result may give a potential impact on theoretical and experimental study of quantum many-body phenomena, and also pave a way for understanding the black hole information paradox through the Andreev reflection as a quantum-information mirror.
We uncover current-bias characteristics of superfluid-normal state junctions with weakly-interacting Bose gases. It is shown that in the presence of a chemical potential bias the characteristics can strongly be asymmetric for origin. The salient feature that is absent in the fermionic counterpart arises from a tunneling process associated with a condensate and a bosonic Andreev reflection process. It turns out that such processes are intrinsically nonlinear and therefore do not obey Ohm's law even at a low bias. In addition, the remaining processes are found to obey Ohm's law and become dominant for transport driven by a temperature bias.
Transport in Josephson junctions is commonly described using a simplifying assumption called the Andreev approximation, which assumes that excitations are fixed at the Fermi momentum and only Andreev reflections occur at interfaces (with no normal reflections). This approximation is appropriate for BCS-type superconductors, where the chemical potential vastly exceeds the pairing gap, but it breaks down for superconductors with low carrier density, such as topological superconductors, doped semiconductors, or superfluid quantum gases. Here, we present a generic analyticalanalyticalanalytical framework for calculating transport in Josephson junctions that lifts up the requirement of the Andreev approximation. Using this general framework, we study in detail transport in Josephson junctions across the BCS-BEC crossover, which describes the evolution from a BCS-type superconductor with loosely-paired Cooper pairs to a BEC of tighly-paired dimers. As the interaction is tuned from the BCS to the BEC regime, we find that the overall subgap current caused by multiple Andreev reflections decreases, but nonlinearities in the current-voltage characteristic called the subharmonic gap structure become more pronounced near the intermediate unitary limit, giving rise to sharp peaks and dips in the differential conductance with even negativenegativenegative conductance at specific voltages.
We study the bosonic analog of Andreev reflection at a normal-superfluid interface where the superfluid is a boson condensate. We model the normal region as a zone where nonlinear effects can be neglected. Against the background of a decaying condensate, we identify a novel contribution to the current of reflected atoms. The group velocity of this Andreev reflected component differs from that of the normally reflected one. For a three-dimensional planar or two-dimensional linear interface Andreev reflection is neither specular nor conjugate.
In this thesis we present theoretical investigations of the effects of Andreev bound states on the current transport in superconducting interferometers. We also investigate the slow dynamics of the Andreev states in a superconducting point contact, and the possible application as a quantum bit. We consider superconductor-normal metal-superconductor (SNS) and normal metalsuperconductor (NS) interferometers, where the contact region is a Y-shaped normal metal wave guide, and the two connection points to the same superconducting electrode can have different phases. The electric current in the interferometer is calculated as a function of the applied voltage and the phase difference . Andreev reflection in SNS and NS interferometers incorporates two features: interference in the arms of the Y-shaped normal region, and interplay with Andreev resonances. The latter feature yields rich phase dependent current structures in the subgap voltage region. The interference effect leads to a suppression of the current structures at . We investigate the effects on the Josephson current in NS interferometers due to current injection from the normal electrode. The two main effects of the nonequilibrium situation are: nonequilibrium population of the Andreev levels, which can result in enhancement, suppression, or even sign reversal of the Josephson current, and an anomalous interference Josephson effect, which gives rise to a long range Josephson effect, increasing with the voltage up to the superconducting gap . The two Andreev states in a superconducting quantum point contact can be accessed for manipulation and measurement by embedding the point contact in a superconducting loop. We calculate an effective Hamiltonian for the slow dynamics of the Andreev two-level system in the ring. Furthermore, we discuss methods of manipulation of the Andreev levels, and coupling of qubits. The state of the Andreev two-level system can be read out by monitoring the macroscopic quantum tunneling in a current biased Josephson junction, which is embedded in the superconducting ring of the qubit. We discuss the effects on the qubit, the readout scheme and the signal-to-noise ratio. THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Coherent processes in Superconducting quantum interferometers and qubits
Point contacts provide simple connections between macroscopic particle reservoirs. In electric circuits, strong links between metals, semiconductors, or superconductors have applications for fundamental condensed-matter physics as well as quantum information processing. However, for complex, strongly correlated materials, links have been largely restricted to weak tunnel junctions. We studied resonantly interacting Fermi gases connected by a tunable, ballistic quantum point contact, finding a nonlinear current-bias relation. At low temperature, our observations agree quantitatively with a theoretical model in which the current originates from multiple Andreev reflections. In a wide contact geometry, the competition between superfluidity and thermally activated transport leads to a conductance minimum. Our system offers a controllable platform for the study of mesoscopic devices based on strongly interacting matter.
Andreev reflection, which corresponds to the tunneling of two electrons from a metallic lead to a superconductor lead as a Cooper pair (or vice versa), can be exploited to measure high frequency noise. A detector is proposed, which consists of a normal lead--superconductor circuit, which is capacitively coupled to a mesoscopic circuit where noise is to be measured. We discuss two detector circuits: a single normal metal-superconductor tunnel junction and a normal metal separated from a superconductor by a quantum dot operating in the Coulomb blockade regime. A substantial dc current flows in the detector circuit when an appropriate photon is provided or absorbed by the mesoscopic circuit, which plays the role of an environment for the junction to which it couples. Results for the current can be cast in all cases in the form of a frequency integral of the excess noise of the environment weighted by a kernel, which is specific to the transport process (quasiparticle tunneling, Andreev reflection, etc) considered. We apply these ideas to the measurement of the excess noise of a quantum point contact, and we provide numerical estimates of the detector current.