• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.80.224517
• Corpus ID: 118564231

Pseudodiffusive transmission of nodal Dirac fermions through a clean d -wave superconductor

@article{Asbth2009PseudodiffusiveTO,
  title={Pseudodiffusive transmission of nodal Dirac fermions through a clean d -wave superconductor},
  author={J{\'a}nos K. Asb{\'o}th and A. Akhmerov and Andrei C. Berceanu and C. W. J. Beenakker},
  journal={Physical Review B},
  year={2009},
  volume={80},
  pages={224517}
}

• J. Asbóth, A. Akhmerov, +1 author C. Beenakker
• Published 29 September 2009
• Physics
• Physical Review B

We calculate the transmission of electrons and holes between two normal-metal (N) electrodes, separated over a distance $L$ by an impurity-free superconductor (S) with $d$-wave symmetry of the order parameter. Nodal lines of vanishing excitation gap form ballistic conduction channels for coupled electron-hole excitations, described by an anisotropic two-dimensional Dirac equation. We find that the transmitted electrical and thermal currents both have the pseudodiffusive $1/L$ scaling characteristic of massless Dirac fermions\char22{}regardless of the presence of tunnel barriers at the NS interfaces. Tunnel barriers reduce the slope of the $1/L$ scaling in the case of the electrical current while leaving the thermal current unaffected.