High frequency phonon emission from superconducting Al-tunnelling junctions

Abstract

In single particle tunneling between identical superconductors phonons are generated by relaxation - and recombination transitions of injected quasiparticles. Phonon detection is mediated by the breaking of Cooper-pairs by phonons with energy exceeding the superconducting energy gap 2Δ D. This leads to an increase of the quasiparticle population and a corresponding contribution to the tunneling current in the thermal tunneling regime 0 <eV <2Δ D(V = battery voltage).