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Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 026803 (2010) [4 pages]

Environment-Assisted Tunneling as an Origin of the Dynes Density of States

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J. P. Pekola1, V. F. Maisi2, S. Kafanov1, N. Chekurov3, A. Kemppinen2, Yu. A. Pashkin4,*, O.-P. Saira1, M. Möttönen1,5, and J. S. Tsai4
1Low Temperature Laboratory, Aalto University, P.O. Box 13500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
2Centre for Metrology and Accreditation (MIKES), P.O. Box 9, 02151 Espoo, Finland
3Department of Micro and Nanosciences, Aalto University, P.O. Box 13500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
4NEC Nano Electronics Research Laboratories and RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, 34 Miyukigaoka, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8501, Japan
5Department of Applied Physics/COMP, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland

Received 26 February 2010; published 6 July 2010

We show that the effect of a high-temperature environment in current transport through a normal metal–insulator–superconductor tunnel junction can be described by an effective density of states in the superconductor. In the limit of a resistive low-Ohmic environment, this density of states reduces into the well-known Dynes form. Our theoretical result is supported by experiments in engineered environments. We apply our findings to improve the performance of a single-electron turnstile, a potential candidate for a metrological current source.

© 2010 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.026803
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.026803
PACS:
73.40.Gk, 06.20.Jr, 72.70.+m, 73.20.At

*On leave from P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow 119991, Russia.

 
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