Title
Impact of damping on the superconducting gap dynamics induced by intense terahertz pulses
Campus Units
Physics and Astronomy, Ames Laboratory
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
8-5-2019
Journal or Book Title
Physical Review B
Volume
100
Issue
5
First Page
054504
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.100.054504
Abstract
We investigate the interplay between coherent gap dynamics and damping in superconductors taken out of equilibrium by strong optical pulses with subgap terahertz frequencies. A semiphenomenological formalism is developed to include the damping within the electronic subsystem that arises from effects beyond Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer mean-field theory, such as interactions between Bogoliubov quasiparticles and decay of the Higgs mode. These processes, conveniently expressed as longitudinal T1 and transverse T2 relaxation times in the standard pseudospin language for superconductors, cause the gap amplitude to be suppressed after the pulse is turned off, but before the timescale where thermalization occurs due to coupling to the lattice. We show that our model quantitatively captures the experimental gap dynamics reported here of NbN and Nb3Sn through the picosecond timescale.
Copyright Owner
American Physical Society
Copyright Date
2019
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Cui, Tianbai; Yang, Xu; Vaswani, Chirag; Wang, Jigang; Fernandes, Rafael M.; and Orth, Peter, "Impact of damping on the superconducting gap dynamics induced by intense terahertz pulses" (2019). Physics and Astronomy Publications. 483.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/physastro_pubs/483
Comments
This article is published as Cui, Tianbai, Xu Yang, Chirag Vaswani, Jigang Wang, Rafael M. Fernandes, and Peter P. Orth. "Impact of damping on the superconducting gap dynamics induced by intense terahertz pulses." Physical Review B 100, no. 5 (2019): 054504. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.100.054504. Posted with permission.