2025/06/25 by Shpagina, E. V., Tikhonov, E. S., Ruhstorfer, D. +2
#FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.20408
We investigate a non-equilibrium aspect of the current-driven superconducting-normal phase transition in floating Al islands of epitaxial full-shell Al/InAs nanowires. Within a transition region discontinuous voltage jumps and hysteretic behaviour of the I-V characteristics are observed, associated with the destruction and recovery of the superconducting order parameter in the island. The strength of the two features varies strongly in different devices in a mutually correlated way and can be suppressed by a small magnetic field. Numerical calculation explains this behaviour in terms of a tiny non-equilibrium correction to the electronic energy distribution at low energies. The experiment demonstrates a critical failure of a two-temperature non-equilibrium model of the superconductor-normal transition in floating islands of hybrid nanowire devices.