Odd-frequency superconductivity induced by nonmagnetic impurities

Abstract

A growing body of literature suggests that odd-frequency superconducting pair amplitudes can be generated in normal-metal-superconductor junctions. The emergence of odd-frequency pairing in these systems is often attributed to the breaking of translation invariance. In this work, we study the pair symmetry of a one-dimensional s-wave superconductor in the presence of a single nonmagnetic impurity and demonstrate that translation-symmetry breaking is not sufficient for inducing odd-frequency pairing. We consider three kinds of impurities: a local perturbation of the chemical potential, an impurity possessing a quantum energy level, and a local perturbation of the superconducting gap. Surprisingly, we find local perturbations of the chemical potential do not induce any odd-frequency pairing, despite the fact that they break translation invariance. Moreover, although odd frequency can be induced by both the quantum impurity and the perturbation of the gap, we find these odd-frequency amplitudes emerge from entirely different kinds of scattering processes. The quantum impurity generates odd-frequency pairs by allowing one of the quasiparticles belonging to an equal-time Cooper pair to tunnel onto the impurity state and then back to the superconductor, giving rise to odd-frequency amplitudes with a temporal broadening inversely proportional to the energy level of the impurity. In contrast to this, the perturbation of the gap leads to odd-frequency pairing by “gluing together” normal-state quasiparticles from different points in space and time, leading to odd-frequency amplitudes which are very localized in the time domain.

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