Resistive states in wide superconducting films induced by dc and ac currents (Review Article)

Abstract

This review is devoted to the studies of the resistive state in wide superconducting films induced by dc and ac currents in the absence of an external magnetic field. It is found experimentally that the current-voltage characteristics and their parameters are well described by the Aslamazov–Lempitskii theory of the resistive vortex state, which has long been lacking an adequate evidence to support it. There is experimental evidence that the vortex mechanism of resistivity is absent for currents exceeding the maximum current at which the resistive vortex state exists in wide films. The non-vortex nature of phase slip lines (PSL) in wide films is proved experimentally. It is shown that the phase-slip lines arise in a wide superconducting film subjected to an external microwave irradiation with the power exceeding some critical value. The resistance of these phase-slip lines depends on irradiation frequency. Results obtained in studies of PSL in wide films are similar to those obtained for the phase-slip centers in narrow channels. This suggests the identical nature of the phase-slip processes in these two phenomena. It is established that the current-carrying resistive state of a wide film arises due to two different mechanisms that occur one after the other: the penetration into the film and transverse motion of the Pearl vortices induced by the magnetic field of the transport current and the emergence of the phase-slip lines of the superconducting order parameter.

Quantum phase slips and number-phase duality in disordered TiN nanostrips

“…Given the fact that our strips are considerably wider than the coherence length and very close to the SIT, such agreement is very satisfactory. It suggests that the concept of thermally activated phase slips (in our case, more phase slip lines [28]) can at least qualitatively be transferred to films substantially wider than the coherence length [29].…”

Millimetre Wave Kinetic Inductance Parametric Amplification using Ridge Gap Waveguide

“…, where κ * is constant of order 1 [19] and N 0 is the number density at the Fermi level. However, if the trace is wider than the perpendicular penetration depth w λ ⊥ , the current distribution becomes non-uniform and accumulates at the edges of the film [16]. In this work, the SC traces are in the 100s µm which means solutions of the wide film critical current should be explored.…”

“…The scaling current is sensitive to a number of factors [16] including the substrate roughness and composition, film geometry, deposition conditions and operating temperature which means it can vary over orders of magnitude for a given SC material. Analytic solutions of the scaling current usually only set the upper bound for this value.…”

“…In this work, the SC traces are in the 100s µm which means solutions of the wide film critical current should be explored. In the case of a pristine film with perfect edges the critical current [16] is given by…”

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“…In particular, it was argued that the one-to-one mapping of a vortex to a particle breaks down at high velocities where vortex displacements take place at shorter time scales than the time to recover the superconducting order parameter along the vortex trajectory. The vortices then become elongated and turn into phase slip lines [17,100,[110][111][112]. While it has been demonstrated that vortex guiding persists up to several GHz [57], the crossover from the vortex-mediated flux transport to that via phase slips should be elaborated.…”