Electron-phonon interaction and nonlinear transport phenomena in solid Hg point-contacts

Abstract

At cryogenic temperatures the conductivity of Hg point-contacts was studied in both the superconducting and normal state. An original method of fabricating the Hg-based point-contacts directly in liquid 4He was proposed, which guaranteed creation of small-size high-purity ballistic contacts. The resistance of the contacts as well as the current-voltage characteristics along with the voltage dependence of their first and second derivatives were experimentally investigated at 1.5 K. We analyze such characteristics of the contacts as Josephson critical current, excess current, energy gap and the nonlinear part of conductivity caused by electron-phonon interaction (EPI). The point-contact EPI function gpc(ω) for Hg was reconstructed and integral parameters of EPI were calculated. The gpc(ω) was then used as an approximation to the phonon density of states for estimations of the thermodynamic characteristics in Hg. Finally we discuss the results of our calculations of non-linear conductivity caused by manifestation of the frequency dependence of the energy gap function in the elastic current component through the contact.