CHARGE IMBALANCE
The purpose of this article is to review the theory of charge imbalance, and to discuss its relevance to a number of experimental situations. We introduce the concepts of quasiparticle charge and charge imbalance, and discuss the generation and detection of charge imbalance by tunneling. We describe the relaxation of the injected charge imbalance by inelastic scattering processes, and show how the Boltzmann equation can be solved to obtain the steady state quasiparticle distribution and the charge relaxation rate. Details are given of experiments to measure charge imbalance and the charge relaxation rate when inelastic scattering is the predominant relaxation mechanism. Experiments on and theories of other charge relaxation mechanisms are discussed, namely relaxation via elastic scattering in the presence of energy gap anisotropy, or in the presence of a pair breaking mechanism such as magnetic impurities or an applied supercurrent or magnetic field. We describe three other situations in which charge imbalance occurs, namely the resistance of the NS interface, phase slip centers, and the flow of a supercurrent in the presence of a temperature gradient.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Materials Sciences Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1077139
- Report Number(s):
- LBL-11554
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: NATO Advanced Study Institute on"Non-equilibrium Superconductivity, Phonons and Kapitza Boundaries" , Maratea, Italy, August 25 - September 5, 1980
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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