Supercurrents in lead—copper—-lead sandwiches

TLDR

Thin‑film lead‑copper‑lead junctions have been studied in the superconducting state and their properties are compared to those of junctions with insulating barriers. The authors use a simplified de Gennes proximity‑effect model to quantitatively explain the observed behavior. The experiments show that the junctions support a supercurrent up to a critical value that rises sharply at lower temperatures, falls exponentially with copper thickness, increases with mean free path, and that the critical current’s dependence on magnetic field confirms Josephson‑junction behavior, while the coherence length of Cooper pairs in copper grows as temperature decreases, yielding an interaction parameter of +0.06 to +0.14.

Abstract

The resistance of thin-film lead-copper-lead junctions has been studied with the lead in the superconducting state. The junctions will sustain a supercurrent up to a certain critical value above which a voltage appears, rising smoothly from zero as the current is increased. The effect of a magnetic field upon the critical current has demonstrated that the sandwiches behave phenomenologically as Josephson junctions. The critical current rises rapidly as the temperature is lowered, decreases exponentially with increasing thickness of copper and increases with increase of the mean free path of the copper. A simplified version of the de Gennes theory of the proximity effect has been used to account quantitatively for this behaviour. The experiments show that the coherence length of the paired electrons in the copper increases as the temperature decreases, implying that thermal fluctuations govern the decay of the pairs. From the value of the decay length, the interaction parameter in copper is estimated to lie between +0·06 and +0·14. The properties of these junctions are compared with those of junctions with insulating barriers.