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Biomedical subjects

M A Skvortsov

Publications and source records attributed to M A Skvortsov.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Superconductivity in disordered thin films: giant mesoscopic fluctuations.

We discuss the intrinsic inhomogeneities of superconductive properties of uniformly disordered thin films with a large dimensionless conductance g. It is shown that mesoscopic fluctuations, which usually contain a small factor 1/g, are crucially enhanced near the critical conductance g(cF) >> 1 where superconductivity is destroyed at T = 0 due to Coulomb suppression of the Cooper attraction. This leads to strong spatial fluctuations of the local transition temperature and thus to the percolative nature of the thermal superconductive transition.

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Quantum percolation in granular metals.

Theory of quantum corrections to conductivity of granular metal films is developed for the realistic case of large randomly distributed tunnel conductances. Quantum fluctuations of intergrain voltages (at energies E much below the bare charging energy scale E(C)) suppress the mean conductance g (E) much more strongly than its standard deviation sigma(E). At sufficiently low energies E(*) any distribution becomes broad, with sigma(E(*)) approximately g (E(*)), leading to strong local fluctuations of the tunneling density of states. The percolative nature of the metal-insulator transition is established by a combination of analytic and numerical analysis of the matrix renormalization group equations.

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Dephasing in disordered metals with superconductive grains.

The temperature dependence of electron dephasing time tau(phi)(T) is calculated for a disordered metal with a small concentration of superconductive grains. Above the macroscopic superconducting transition line, when electrons in the metal are normal, Andreev reflection from the grains leads to a nearly temperature-independent contribution to the dephasing rate. In a broad temperature range tau(-1)(phi)(T) strongly exceeds the prediction of the classical theory of dephasing in normal disordered conductors, whereas magnetoresistance is dominated (in two dimensions) by the Maki-Tompson correction and is positive.

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Coulomb blockade of proximity effect at large conductance.

We consider the proximity effect in a normal dot coupled to a bulk superconducting reservoir by the tunnel contact with large normal conductance. Coulomb interaction in the dot suppresses the proximity minigap induced in the normal part of the system. We find exact expressions for the thermodynamic and tunneling minigaps as functions of the junction's capacitance. The tunneling minigap interpolates between its proximity-induced value in the regime of weak Coulomb interaction to the Coulomb gap in the regime of strong interaction. In the intermediate case a nonuniversal two-step structure of the tunneling density of states is predicted. The charge quantization in the dot is also studied.

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Dynamic localization in quantum dots: analytical theory.

We analyze the response of a complex quantum-mechanical system (e.g., a quantum dot) to a time-dependent perturbation phi(t). Assuming the dot to be described by random-matrix theory for the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble, we find the quantum correction to the energy absorption rate as a function of the dephasing time t(phi). If phi(t) is a sum of d harmonics with incommensurate frequencies, the correction behaves similarly to that for the conductivity deltasigma(d)(t(phi)) in the d-dimensional Anderson model of the orthogonal symmetry class. For a generic periodic perturbation, the leading quantum correction is absent as in the systems of the unitary symmetry class, unless phi(-t+tau)=phi(t+tau) for some tau, which falls into the quasi-1D orthogonal universality class.

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Quantum superconductor-metal transition in a proximity array.

A theory of the zero-temperature superconductor-metal transition is developed for an array of superconductive islands (of size d) coupled via a disordered two-dimensional conductor with the dimensionless conductance g = Planck's over 2 pi/e(2)R(square)>>1. At T = 0 the macroscopically superconductive state of the array with lattice spacing b>>d is destroyed at g<g(c) approximately 0.1ln(2)(b/d). At high temperatures the normal-state resistance between neighboring islands at b = b(c) is much smaller than R(Q) = h/4e(2).

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