Temporary cooling of quasiparticles and delay in voltage response of superconducting bridges after abrupt switching on the supercritical current

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamic voltage response of superconducting bridges after sudden supercritical current application, highlighting the roles of quasiparticle cooling, spatial inhomogeneities, and vortex nucleation in delay times.

Contribution

It introduces models that incorporate spatial gradients and quasiparticle kinetics to explain delay times, revealing the influence of inhomogeneities and current distribution on the response.

Findings

Delay time varies with temperature and model used.

Inhomogeneities decrease delay time via quasiparticle diffusion.

AC pulses can produce nonzero average voltage depending on phase.

Abstract

We revisit the problem of the dynamic response of a superconducting bridge after abruptly switching on the supercritical current $I>I_c$. In contrast to previous theoretical works we take into account spatial gradients and use both the local temperature approach and the kinetic equation for the distribution function of quasiparticles. In both models the finite delay time $t_d$ in the voltage response is connected with temporary cooling of quasiparticles due to the suppression of the superconducitng order parameter by current. We find that $t_d$ has different values and different temperature dependencies in the considered models. In turns out that the presence of even small inhomogeneities in the bridge or of bulk leads/contacts at the ends of the {\it homogenous} bridge favors a local suppression of the superconducting order parameter $|\Delta|$ during the dynamic response. It results in a decrease of the delay time, in comparison with the spatially uniform model, due to the diffusion of nonequilibrium quasiparticles from the region with locally suppressed $|\Delta|$. In case the current distribution is spatially nonuniform across the bridge the delay time is mainly connected with the time needed for the nucleation of the first vortex at the position where the current density is maximal (at $I\sim I_c$ and for not very wide films). We also find that a short alternating current pulse (sinusoid like) with zero time-average may result in a nonzero time-averaged voltage response where its sign depends on the phase of the ac current.