Comparing energy dissipation mechanisms within the vortex dynamics of gap and gapless nano-sized superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates energy dissipation mechanisms in mesoscopic superconductors, focusing on vortex dynamics, electric fields, and order parameter relaxation, using time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory to improve understanding of resistive states.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of including superconducting order parameter relaxation in dissipation models, which is often neglected in vortex dynamics studies.

Findings

Order parameter relaxation significantly contributes to energy dissipation.

Thermal effects and vortex motion jointly influence dissipation.

Neglecting order parameter relaxation leads to incomplete energy dissipation descriptions.

Abstract

The presence of magnetic fields and/or transport currents can cause penetration of vortices in superconductors. Their motion leads to dissipation and resistive state arises, which in turn strongly affects the performance of superconducting devices such as single-photon and single-electron detectors. Therefore, an understanding of the dissipation mechanisms in mesoscopic superconductors is not only of fundamental value but also very important for further technological advances. In the present work, we analyzed the contributions and interplay of the dissipative mechanisms due to the locally induced electric field and an intrinsic relaxation of the superconducting order parameter, $\Psi$, in mesoscopic samples by using the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory. Although often neglected, we show that the dissipated energy due to relaxation of $\Psi$ must be taken into account for an adequate description of the total dissipated energy. The local increase of the temperature due to vortex motion and its diffusion in the sample were also analyzed, where the joint effect of thermal relaxation and vortex dynamics plays an important role for the dissipative properties presented by the superconducting systems.