Influence of vortices and phase fluctuations on thermoelectric transport properties of superconductors in a magnetic field

Abstract

We study heat transport and thermoelectric effects in two-dimensional superconductors in a magnetic field. These are modeled as granular Josephson-junction arrays, forming either regular or random lattices. We employ two different models for the dynamics: relaxational model-A dynamics or resistively and capacitively shunted Josephson junction dynamics. We derive expressions for the heat current in these models, which are then used in numerical simulations to calculate the heat conductivity and Nernst coefficient for different temperatures and magnetic fields. At low temperatures and zero magnetic field the heat conductivity in the RCSJ model is calculated analytically from a spin wave approximation, and is seen to have an anomalous logarithmic dependence on the system size, and also to diverge in the completely overdamped limit C→0. From our simulations we find at low magnetic fields that the Nernst signal displays a characteristic “tilted hill” profile similar to experiments and a nonmonotonic temperature dependence of the heat conductivity. We also investigate the effects of granularity and randomness, which become important for higher magnetic fields. In this regime geometric frustration strongly influences the results in both regular and random systems and leads to highly nontrivial magnetic field dependencies of the studied transport coefficients.

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