Transport in normal-superconductor-normal structures with local conservation of current

TL;DR

This paper investigates how local charge conservation and coherent quasiparticle scattering influence transport in NSN structures, revealing effects of phase gradients and resonances on conductance and current.

Contribution

It provides an exact self-consistent analysis of transport in NSN structures, emphasizing the impact of phase gradients and multiple scattering on conductance features.

Findings

Phase gradient shifts the first conductance peak to lower voltages.

Global current is enhanced by phase gradients.

Resonance structures are smoothed in longer superconductors.

Abstract

We study the transport properties of a NSN structure with an insulating barrier at each NS interface. Coherent quasiparticle scattering is assumed and self-consistency is implemented exactly to guarantee local charge conservation. The presence of a finite condensate flow has a greater influence on the transport properties than either the gap depression near the interfaces or the coherent nature of scattering. We find that a nonzero phase gradient causes a shift towards lower voltages of the first peak in the differential conductance and a global enhancement of current. At low currents, we obtain gap profiles near the interfaces that are consistent with the criteria for boundary conditions employed in macroscopic descriptions. The existence of coherent multiple scattering gives rise to a rich structure of resonances that is smoothed out for long superconductors.