Control of switching between metastable superconducting states in δ-MoN nanowires

Abstract

The superconducting state in one-dimensional nanosystems is very delicate. While fluctuations of the phase of the superconducting wave function lead to the spontaneous decay of persistent supercurrents in thin superconducting wires and nanocircuits, discrete phase-slip fluctuations can also lead to more exotic phenomena, such as the appearance of metastable superconducting states in current-bearing wires. Here we show that switching between different metastable superconducting states in δ-MoN nanowires can be very effectively manipulated by introducing small amplitude electrical noise. Furthermore, we show that deterministic switching between metastable superconducting states with different numbers of phase-slip centres can be achieved in both directions with small electrical current pulse perturbations of appropriate polarity. The observed current-controlled bi-stability is in remarkable agreement with theoretically predicted trajectories of the system switching between different limit cycle solutions of a model one-dimensional superconductor.

Thermodynamic Parameters of Single‐ or Multi‐Band Superconductors Derived from Self‐Field Critical Currents

“…We thus use Table 5. References for the raw J c (sf) data sets are: (a) Al, [45] (b) Sn, [39] (c) Zn, [46] (d) amorphous-W, [47] (e) PbIn, [48] (f) δ-MoN, [49] (g) YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 [43] and (h) YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 . [44] Where available independently-measured ground-state values of λ 0 are shown by the green data points at T = 0 K. [6] Figure 1, are the surface field components at the middle of the flat surface and edge, respectively.…”

“…PbIn cylinder 27.5 -5 [40] 1.06 [48] 7.6 ± 0.6 1.6 ± 0. [132] 2.5 [7] 150 [40] MoN cylinder 320 -54 0.58 [49] 12.6 ± 0.1 2.9 ± 0.1 5 ± 0.7 463 ± 1 5 . 3± 0.2 0.58 0.58 3.45 58.7 experiment from ξ 0 1.94 [134] 440 ± 40 [42] [133] YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 136 50 95 [40] 17.5 [43] [124] 2.7 [125] 125 [126] Table 6.…”

Nanoscale electrodynamics of strongly correlated quantum materials

“…Techniques with sufficient temporal resolution are able to selectively excite and probe particular electronic, magnetic, or lattice modes. Examples include time-resolved studies of quasiparticle dynamics in superconductors [11,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], and heavy fermion compounds [25][26][27][28][29] as well as experiments on photo-induced superconductivity [30,31], and insulator to metal phase transitions in vanadates [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43], nickelates [44], manganites [45][46][47][48][49][50][51] and transition metal dichalcogenides [52]. We summarize some of the relevant effects in an energytime-space diagram in figure 1.…”

Nonequilibrium optical control of dynamical states in superconducting nanowire circuits

“…1B (more details in Materials and Methods). The experiments were performed on well-characterized δ 3 -MoN superconducting nanowires ( 16 ). δ 3 -MoN is a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductor with a relatively high T c of ≃ 14 K so that the phase-slip dynamics can be studied in a wide range of intermediate temperatures, where neither thermal fluctuations in the vicinity of T c nor excessive self-heating at low temperatures strongly affects the superconductors’ dynamics.…”

“…An observation of QPSCs has stimulated interest in the control of these states. Reversible control of conventional current-driven PSCs with short current pulses was recently demonstrated ( 16 ). Here, the switching occurred between two different dynamical states, which were formerly observed in cyclic current-voltage measurements.…”