Science Daily December 20, 2021
Superconductivity depends on the presence of electrons bound together in a Cooper pair, but they break dissipating into two quasiparticles that hamper the performance of superconductors. It is not clear why Cooper pairs break, but the presence of quasiparticles introduces noise into technologies based on superconductors. Through an experimental set up an international team of researchers (Finland, Sweden) showed that in micron-scale aluminium superconductor separated from metallic copper by a thin insulating layer, the broken Cooper pairs the quasiparticles would tunnel through the insulation to the copper. The Cooper pairs break in bursts, with seconds long periods of silence interrupted by very short flurries of quasiparticles. The results demonstrate the possibility of operating devices without quasiparticles with potentially improved performance….read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Dynamics of quasiparticle relaxation within a burst. Credit: Nature Physics (2021)Â