Carbon nanotubes as nanoscale probes of the superconducting proximity effect in Pd-Nb junctions

Alexander Tselev; Yanfei Yang; Jian Zhang; Paola Barbara; Serhii E. Shafranjuk

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.80.054504

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Carbon nanotubes as nanoscale probes of the superconducting proximity effect in Pd-Nb junctions

Alexander Tselev, Yanfei Yang, Jian Zhang, Paola Barbara, Serhii E. Shafranjuk

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.80.054504 · Physical Review B

T1

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Abstract

We study carbon nanotubes (CNTs) connected to Nb superconducting electrodes through a thin (less than 5 nm) Pd layer. We show that the carbon nanotubes form nanoscale point contacts detecting superconducting proximity effect via Andreev reflection, where an electron injected from the nanotube is reflected as a hole at the Pd/Nb interface and a Cooper pair forms in the Nb. Our data cannot be quantitatively explained by a single interface model, where only one interface between the CNT and a superconducting electrode is considered. Instead, we present a quantitative analysis that includes two separate interfaces—CNT/Pd and Nb/Pd—at each end of the CNT. The data can be used to determine the transparencies of the Pd/Nb and CNT/Pd interfaces.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
Nb Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	9	Pressure not reported	onset