Superconducting proximity effect and order parameter fluctuations in disordered and quasiperiodic systems

Abstract

We study the superconducting proximity effect in inhomogeneous systems in which a disordered or quasicrystalline normal-state wire is connected to a BCS superconductor. We self-consistently compute the local superconducting order parameters in the real-space Bogoliubov–de Gennes framework for three cases, namely, when states are (i) extended, (ii) localized, or (iii) critical. The results show that the spatial decay of the superconducting order parameter as one moves away from the normal-superconductor interface is power law in cases (i) and (iii), stretched exponential in case (ii). In the quasicrystalline case, we observe self-similarity in the spatial modulation of the proximity-induced superconducting order parameter. To characterize fluctuations, which are large in these systems, we study the distribution functions of the order parameter at the center of the normal region. These are Gaussian functions of the variable [case (i)] or of its logarithm [cases (ii) and (iii)]. We give arguments to explain the characteristics of the distributions and their scaling with system size for each of the three cases.

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