Experimental observation of the breaking and recombination of single Cooper pairs

Lambert, N.J.; Edwards, M.; Esmail, A.A.; Pollock, F.A.; Barrett, S.D.; Lovett, B.W.; Ferguson, A.J.

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Date

09/10/2014

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Abstract

We observe the real-time breaking of single Cooper pairs by monitoring the radio-frequency impedance of a superconducting double quantum dot. The Cooper pair breaking rate in the microscale islands of our device decreases as temperature is reduced, saturating at 2 kHz for temperatures beneath 100 mK. In addition, we measure in real time the quasiparticle recombination into Cooper pairs. Analysis of the recombination rates shows that, in contrast to bulk films, a multistage recombination pathway is followed.

Citation

Lambert , N J , Edwards , M , Esmail , A A , Pollock , F A , Barrett , S D , Lovett , B W & Ferguson , A J 2014 , ' Experimental observation of the breaking and recombination of single Cooper pairs ' , Physical Review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics , vol. 90 , no. 14 . https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.140503

Publication

Physical Review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics

Status

Peer reviewed

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.140503

ISSN

1098-0121

Type

Journal article

Rights

© 2014 American Physical Society. Reproduced in accordance with APS transfer of copyright agreement. The final version can also be found via the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.140503

Description

A.J.F. would like to acknowledge the Hitachi Research fellowship, support from Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, and support from the EPSRC Grant No. EP/H016872/1. B.W.L. is supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. F.A.P. would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for financial support.

Collections

University of St Andrews Research

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6381