Current Crowding in Nanoscale Superconductors within the Ginzburg-Landau Model

Abstract

The current density in a superconductor with turnarounds or constrictions is nonuniform due to a geometrical current-crowding effect. This effect reduces the critical current in the superconducting structure compared to a straight segment and is of importance when designing superconducting devices. We investigate the current-crowding effect in numerical simulations within the generalized time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (GTDGL) model. The results are validated experimentally by measuring the magnetic field dependence of the critical current in superconducting-nanowire structures, similar to those employed in single-photon detector devices. Comparing the results with London theory, we conclude that the reduction in critical current is significantly smaller in the GTDGL model. This difference is attributed to the current redistribution effect, which reduces the current density at weak points of the superconductor and counteracts the current-crowding effect. We numerically investigate the effect of the fill factor on the critical current in a meander and conclude that the reduction of the critical current is low enough to justify fill factors higher than 33% for applications where the detection efficiency is critical. Finally, we propose a meander design that can combine a high fill factor and low current crowding.