Cotunneling suppression in a hybrid single-electron transistor by a dissipative electromagnetic environment

Abstract

We study electron transport through a hybrid single-electron transistor, consisting of a superconducting island and normal-metal electrodes, in the Coulomb blockade regime. We derive analytic expressions for the elastic and inelastic cotunneling currents, which exhibit power law suppression induced by the dissipative electromagnetic environment. The results can be used to improve the accuracy of hybrid devices employed in electrical metrology and for noise measurements in quantum information processing.