Related papers: How many quasiparticles can be in a superconductor…
At low temperature, the concentration of quasiparticles observed in superconducting circuits far exceeds the predictions of microscopic BCS theory at equilibrium. As a source of dissipation, these excess quasiparticles degrade the…
Many superconducting devices rely on the finite gap in the excitation spectrum of a superconductor: thanks to this gap, at temperatures much smaller than the critical one the number of excitations (quasiparticles) that can impact the…
Material inhomogeneities in a superconductor generically lead to broadening of the density of states and to subgap states. The latter are associated with spatial fluctuations of the gap in which quasiparticles can be trapped. Recombination…
It is shown that there are a significant number of quasiparticles present in the superconductor even at the temperature far below the transition temperature and that those quasiparticles seriously contribute to the characteristics of…
In the superconducting state, the presence of a finite gap in the excitation spectrum implies that the number of excitations (quasiparticles) is exponentially small at temperatures well below the critical one. Conversely, minute…
Superconducting qubits probe environmental defects such as non-equilibrium quasiparticles, an important source of decoherence. We show that "hot" non-equilibrium quasiparticles, with energies above the superconducting gap, affect qubits…
Nonequilibrium properties of short-coherence-length s-wave superconductors are analyzed in the presence of extrinsic and intrinsic inhomogeneities. In general, the lowest-energy configurations of quasiparticle excitations are topological…
Superconducting qubits hold promise for quantum computing, but their operation is challenged by various sources of noise, including excitations known as quasiparticles. Qubits with gap asymmetry larger than their transition energy are less…
A known source of decoherence in superconducting qubits is the presence of broken Cooper pairs, or quasiparticles. These can be generated by high-energy radiation, either present in the environment or purposefully introduced, as in the case…
An excess density of quasiparticles is widely observed in superconducting films. This excess causes performance degradation in a variety of superconducting devices, including decoherence in qubits. In this Letter, we evaluate the hypothesis…
Nowadays superconductors serve in numerous applications, from high-field magnets to ultra-sensitive detectors of radiation. Mesoscopic superconducting devices, i.e. those with nanoscale dimensions, are in a special position as they are…
We have directly measured quasiparticle number fluctuations in a thin film superconducting Al resonator in thermal equilibrium. The spectrum of these fluctuations provides a measure of both the density and the lifetime of the…
We have studied the diffusion of excess quasiparticles in a current-biased superconductor strip in proximity to a metallic trap junction. In particular, we have measured accurately the superconductor temperature at a near-gap injection…
Designing the spatial profile of the superconducting gap -- gap engineering -- has long been recognized as an effective way of controlling quasiparticles in superconducting devices. In aluminum films, their thickness modulates the gap;…
Non-equilibrium quasiparticle excitations degrade the performance of a variety of superconducting circuits. Understanding the energy distribution of these quasiparticles will yield insight into their generation mechanisms, the limitations…
The quasiparticle density observed in low-temperature superconducting circuits is several orders of magnitude larger than the value expected at thermal equilibrium. The tunneling of this excess of quasiparticles across Josephson junctions…
We argue based on theoretical considerations and analysis of experimental data that quasiparticle excitations near the nodes determine the low temperature properties in the superconducting state of cuprates. Quantum effects of phase…
We present a general theory of quasiparticle number fluctuations in superconductors. The theory uses the master equation formalism. First, we develop the theory for a single occupation variable. Although this simple system is insufficient…
The combination of a large superconducting gap, low transition temperature, and quasi two-dimensionality in strongly underdoped high temperature superconductors severely constrains the behavior of the ab-plane superfluid density \rho with…
The density of quasiparticles typically observed in superconducting qubits exceeds the value expected in equilibrium by many orders of magnitude. Can this out-of-equilibrium quasiparticle density still possess an energy distribution in…