Local bistability under microwave heating for spatially mapping disordered superconductors
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2022-10-24 v3 Superconductivity
Abstract
We theoretically study a strongly disordered superconducting layer heated by near-field microwave radiation from a nanometric metallic tip. The microwaves heat up the quasiparticles, which cool by phonon emission and conduction away from the heated area. Due to a bistability with two stable states of the electron temperature under the tip, the heating can be tuned to induce a submicrometer-sized normal region bounded by a sharp domain wall between high- and low-temperature states. We propose this as a local probe to access different physics from existing methods, for example, to map out inhomogeneous superfluid flow in the layer. The bistability-induced domain wall can significantly improve its spatial resolution.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2205.07934,
title = {Local bistability under microwave heating for spatially mapping disordered superconductors},
author = {D. B. Karki and R. S. Whitney and D. M. Basko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.07934},
year = {2022}
}