Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Superconducting Phase Transition In Inhomogeneous Chains Of Superconducting Islands, Eduard Ilin, Irina Burkova, Xiangyu Song, Michael Pak, Dmitri S. Golubev, Alexey Bezryadin

Faculty Publications

We study one-dimensional chains of superconducting islands with a particular emphasis on the regime in which every second island is switched into its normal state, thus forming a superconductor-insulator-normal metal (S-I-N) repetition pattern. As is known since Giaever tunneling experiments, tunneling charge transport between a superconductor and a normal metal becomes exponentially suppressed, and zero-bias resistance diverges, as the temperature is reduced and the energy gap of the superconductor grows larger than the thermal energy. Here we demonstrate that this physical phenomenon strongly impacts transport properties of inhomogeneous superconductors made of weakly coupled islands with fluctuating values of the critical …