N A Court et al 2008 Supercond. Sci. Technol. 21 015013 doi:10.1088/0953-2048/21/01/015013
N A Court, A J Ferguson1 and R G Clark
Show affiliationsWe report measurements of the superconducting gap in Al–Al2O3–Al tunnel junctions as a function of aluminium film thickness. Films of thickness 5, 7, 10 and 30 nm were used to form the small-area superconductor–insulator–superconductor tunnel junctions. In agreement with previous measurements we have observed an increase in the superconducting energy gap of aluminium with a decrease in film thickness. In addition, we find grain size in small-area films with thickness ≥10 nm has no appreciable effect on the energy gap. Finally, we utilize 7 and 30 nm films in a single Cooper-pair transistor and observe the modification of the finite bias transport processes due to the engineered gap profile.
74.78.Na Mesoscopic and nanoscale systems
74.50.+r Tunneling phenomena; point contacts, weak links, Josephson effects
Issue 1 (January 2008)
Received 27 June 2007, in final form 28 August 2007
Published 27 November 2007
N A Court et al 2008 Supercond. Sci. Technol. 21 015013
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