# Andreev scattering in nanoscopic junctions at high magnetic fields.

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## Abstract

We report on the measurement of multiple Andreev resonances at atomic size point contacts between two superconducting nanostructures of Pb under magnetic fields higher than the bulk critical field, where superconductivity is restricted to a mesoscopic region near the contact. The small number of conduction channels in this type of contacts permits a quantitative comparison with theory through the whole field range. We discuss in detail the physical properties of our structure, in which the normal bulk electrodes induce a proximity effect into the mesoscopic superconducting part.

PACS numbers: 61.16.Ch, 62.20.Fe, 73.40.Cg

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It is well know that it is possible to fabricate atomic size contacs between metallic electrodes in a controlled way by means of the mechanically controllable break junction technique or the scanning tunneling microscope (STM).  Indeed, by repeatedly indenting the tip into the sample one can achieve a stationary state in which a connecting neck between the electrodes is formed. This neck elongates and contracts during the repeated indentation following a well defined pattern of elastic and plastic steps, which has been neatly measured in a combined STM-AFM experiment where conductance and forces could be recorded simultaneously.

The properties of a given neck can be probed by measuring the current-voltage characteristic within the same experiment, so that the STM serves at the same time as a fabrication tool and as an experimental probe of a very singular atomic size nanostructure. A reasonable knowledge of the geometry of the neck which can be varied in a well controlled way, is obtained through a simultaneous measurement of the conductance during the fabrication process. The final form of these structures, which are successfully fabricated  is a long connecting neck jointed on its ends to the bulk electrodes whose radius decreases in a smooth way towards a central constriction, which can be of atomic size.

In this experiment, the control of the morphology extends over two lengths scales: first, the overall form of the neck can be varied at mesoscopic length scales (hundreds or thousands of Å) by the repeated indentation process, and second, the smallest cross section can be varied at atomic scales (tens of Å) by doing small voltage variations on the z- piezotube. Recently new possibilities of atomic size contacts have lead to progress on the understanding of some phenomena occurring at a nanoscopic level. It has been shown during the last years that lead (Pb) is a good material to create this kind of small dimensions systems having the additional advantage of being a superconductor below $`T_c=7.16K`$. Indeed, the transport of current between two weakly linked superconductors brings noteworthy information about the contact through e.g. the Josephson current or through the multiple Andreev reflection mechanism. In the case of a single atom link between two electrodes the authors of Ref. proposed that the effect of the multiple Andreev resonances on the I-V characteristics is a measure of the number and transparency of the conduction channels through a single atom.

In this work we focus on the magnetic field dependence of the I-V characteristics of single atom point contacts. Indeed, it is well known that superconductors of reduced dimensions such as thin films or granular samples remain superconducting well above Hc. As the magnetic field penetration depth of lead is about 390Å for a bulky sample, it is feasible to build connecting necks with smaller lateral dimensions with the repeated indentation procedure. We find indeed that sufficiently long and narrow necks show superconducting features up to fields as large as 20 times the bulk critical field of Pb (which is 0.05T at 1.5K). The structure of subgap resonances due to multiple Andreev reflections remains under field and our analysis shows in detail how the pair breaking effect of the magnetic field, together with the N-S proximity effect from the bulk electrodes smears the subgap resonances.

We use a stable STM setup with a tip and a sample of the same material (Pb) which is brought from the tunneling into the contact regime by cutting the feedback loop. The I-V curves were taken at 1.5K using a standard four wire technique. Great care was taken to shield electrically the whole setup as RF noise is known to smear the subgap resonances in small contacts. The experiment is done by gently changing the smallest cross section of the neck to make a large number of atomic size contacts at each magnetic field without varying the overall form of the neck. Indeed, while our setup is sufficiently stable to maintain the same neck over a complete magnetic field sweep, we cannot maintain the morphology of the neck on the atomic level over a large field variation. Nevertheless, we could perform small field sweeps of several hundred Gauss with a given atomic arrangement and we find the same result, so that the measurement procedure does not change the results presented here. The maximal elongation of the piezotube, which is 1600 Å, limits the overall length of the necks. Here we discuss one typical case of a neck having a critical field of about 20 times the bulk critical field of lead with a magnetic field applied always parallel to the long axis.

Fig.1 shows a representative choice of measured I-V curves of several last contacts before breaking at zero field and under field. Each I-V curve, is different at each contact and can be well fitted at zero field by the conduction channels model of Ref. (straight lines, upper figure in Fig.1). Accordingly, the experimental I-V curves in a last contact show a large variety of behaviors which is slightly changed by varying the morphology of the contact at atomic length scales. This is compatible with measurements that record the conductance at a fixed voltage in a large number of contacts and show how the conductance of Pb last contacts shows steps comparable to the quantum unit of conductance, but the average value has large fluctuations. The model of Ref. uses (and verifies) the theoretical predictions that the I-V curve between two superconductors which are weakly linked through a small number of conduction channels is highly non linear and varies strongly depending on the transparency $`T`$ of the junction ($`0<T<1`$; tunnel to contact regimes). It turns out, that only one conduction channel with a given $`T`$ is not sufficient to fit the I-V curves shown in Fig.1, but that it is necessary to add a number $`N`$ of theoretical curves, each one with a given $`T_n`$ between 0 and 1. This was related to the number $`N`$ and transparency $`T_n`$ of channels in each single atom contact, where $`N`$ and the average values of the $`T_n`$’s depend on the element studied. In the case of Pb, this gives $`N=3`$ with $`T_1`$ rather opened (most frequently close to $`1`$) and $`T_{2,3}`$ more closed (smaller than $`1`$). In the uppermost part of Fig.1 the numbers show the experimentally measured $`T_n`$’s for each contact. We will not go into more details about this model which is extensively discussed in Refs.. In the following, we discuss how to explain the data under field.

We first analyze the influence of the magnetic field introducing the pair breaking effect in the standard procedure, as formulated in a wavefunction representation. It was shown in that pair breaking effects can be incorporated by modifying the Andreev reflection amplitude, $`a(\omega )=u(\omega )\sqrt{u^2(\omega )1}`$, where $`u(\omega )`$ satisfies:

$$\frac{\omega }{\mathrm{\Delta }}=u\left(1\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{1}{\sqrt{1u^2}}\right)$$
(1)   
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1/(\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _{pb})`$, $`\tau _{pb}`$ is the pair breaking time and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the self consistent superconducting gap including the pair breaking effects. This expression is generally valid, irrespective of the origin of the pair breaking mechanism. The value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ used in the fittings was assumed to be the same for all channels and all I-V curves at a given applied field.

The straight lines in Fig.1 shows the fittings which are as good as the ones obtained at zero field, provided that the pair breaking parameter is introduced. The number $`N`$ and the characteristic values of the parameters for the transparency of each channel $`T_n`$ does not vary up to the largest fields. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is determined with a precision of about 20%.

The values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ explain the magnetic field dependence of the gap in the tunneling regime, which we have measured by breaking completely the contact. We therefore could follow and fit precisely the predicted influence of pair breaking in the structures associated with multiple Andreev reflections. This was not possible to do previously, as other realizations of multiple Andreev reflections (e.g. large point contacts, tunnel junctions with microbridges ) involve experimental setups which are much more complex than a single atom contact with a small number of conduction channels and cannot be modelled precisely.

We can gain more insight in the physics of this system if we consider the pair breaking parameter in a uniform superconducting cylinder in a magnetic field which is given by :

$$\frac{\mathrm{}}{\tau _{pb}}=\frac{e^2DR^2H^2}{6\mathrm{}^2}$$
(2)   
where $`R`$ is the radius of the cylinder, $`D=v_Fl/3`$ is the diffusion coefficient, $`l`$ is the mean free path, and $`H`$ is the applied field. Following this model, in order to explain the values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ used in fig. we need a cylinder of a radius which is rather large ($`R450`$Å, taking $`\xi R`$, note that a smaller value of $`\xi `$ leads to even larger values of $`R`$) as compared to the usual width estimations for the neck presented here or other necks fabricated with the same method . Clearly, a model based on a simple cylinder does not explain the observed behavior, we need to take into account that the radius varies as a function of $`z`$.

We analyze in the following the order parameter, density of states and pair breaking parameter in a neck of a varying radius. Indeed, a better agreement is obtained if we consider that at a given field, the superconducting region is in good contact with the part of the neck with larger radius which already became normal, so that pair breaking effects arise from the proximity effect of this normal region. Assuming that the electronic mean free path is smaller than the coherence length, we can describe the superconducting properties by the Usadel equations. We parametrize the Green’s functions in terms of an angle parameter, $`\theta (\stackrel{}{r},E)`$, where $`E`$ is the energy measured from the chemical potential. Setting $`\mathrm{}=1`$, they can be written as:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{D}{2}}^2\theta `$ $`+`$ $`iE\mathrm{sin}(\theta )+|\mathrm{\Delta }|\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$ (3)   
$``$ $`2e^2D|\stackrel{}{A}|^2\mathrm{cos}(\theta )\mathrm{sin}(\theta )=0`$ (4)   
where $`\stackrel{}{A}=(Hr\stackrel{}{u}_\varphi )/2`$ is the vector potential. We neglect the influence of other spin flip and inelastic processes. At the boundary of the contact, we have $`|\theta |_R=0`$, and $`R(z)`$ determines the geometry of the neck (we neglect any radial dependencies, and take $`R(z)\xi `$). We also assume that the magnetic field is unscreened within the neck. Then, $`A`$ can be replaced by its average, $`A^2(z)=\frac{H^2R(z)^2}{12}`$. Within this approximation, the vector potential enters in eq. as giving rise to an effective, position dependent, pair breaking time. If we apply eq.  to a uniform wire, this pair breaking time reduces to that in eq..

Figure  shows the superconducting order parameter, for different fields, as function of the position for a typical neck modelled by two truncated cones of $`L=800`$ Å length attached to bulk electrodes, with an opening angle of $`\alpha =35^0`$. We also take $`L=3\xi `$, so that $`\xi 260\AA `$. There is a smooth transition to the normal state as the radius of the neck increases. This is further illustrated in figure, where the density of states is shown at different positions for $`H=0.2`$T. For this field, the influence of the normal region is felt throughout the entire neck. Even at the central region, the gap is significantly rounded. This is also observed in the calculated density of states at the center shown in Fig.4.

¿From the solution of the Usadel equations we can infer the amplitude for Andreev reflections at the contact surface, which is given by $`i\mathrm{tan}[\theta (z=0,E)/2]`$. This function is slightly different from the standard expression used to incorporate pair breaking effects in a point contact (see equ.  and Ref.). We have checked that there are no appreciable differences in the quality of the fits to the experimental data, shown in fig., with a reasonable value for $`\xi 260300\AA `$.

In conclusion, we have measured, and analyzed, the multiple Andreev scattering resonances of atomic sized Pb contacts in the presence of a magnetic field greater than the bulk critical field. In this regime, superconductivity is restricted to a small neck of mesoscopic dimensions. We are able to build and control in situ with our STM structures which are a unique example of weak links of dimensions variable from atomic to mesoscopic length scales, opening a new field of studies in nanophysics. We present a quantitative comparison of experiment and theory of pair breaking effects on multiple Andreev resonances.

We would like to thank discussions and the help of A. Izquierdo, G. Rubio and N. Agraït. One of us (E. B.) is thankful to the Universität Karlsruhe for its hospitality. Financial support from the TMR program of the European Commission under contract ERBFMBICT972499, the CICyT (Spain) through grant PB96-0875, the CAM (Madrid) through grant 07N/0045/98 and FPI and the spanish DGIGyT under contract PB97-0068 are gratefully acknowledged.