2000/06/14 by S. Pilgram, Wolfgang Belzig, W. Belzig +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.62.12462
published as Phys. Rev. B 62, 12462 (2000). · 7 pages, 8 figures (included), submitted to PRB
arxiv created 2000/06/14 · openalex publication_date 2000/11/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
We investigate one aspect of the proximity effect, viz., the local density of states of a superconductor-normal metal sandwich. In contrast to earlier work, we allow for the presence of an arbitrary elastic mean free path in the structure. The superconductor induces a gap in the normal-metal spectrum that is proportional to the inverse of the elastic mean free path lN for rather clean systems. For a mean free path much shorter than the thickness of the normal metal, we find a gap size proportional to lN that approaches the behavior predicted by the Usadel equation (diffusive limit). We also discuss the influence of interface and surface roughness, the consequences of a nonideal transmittivity of the interface, and the dependence of our results on the choice of the model of impurity scattering.