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Phys. Rev. B 71, 052505 (2005) [4 pages]

Loss of Andreev backscattering in superconducting quantum point contacts

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N. B. Kopnin1,2, A. S. Mel’nikov3,4, and V. M. Vinokur4
1Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 2200, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland
2L. D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, 117940 Moscow, Russia
3Institute for Physics of Microstructures, Russian Academy of Sciences, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, GSP-105, Russia
4Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA

Received 30 November 2004; published 22 February 2005

We study effects of magnetic field on the quasiparticle energy spectrum in a superconducting quantum point contact. The supercurrent induced by the magnetic field leads to intermode transitions between the electron waves that pass and do not pass through the constriction. The latter experience normal reflections which couple the states with opposite momenta inside the quantum channel and create a minigap in the low-energy spectrum that depends on the magnetic field.

© 2005 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.71.052505
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.71.052505
PACS:
74.45.+c, 74.78.Na, 73.23.−b
 
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