Superconductivity enhancement in thin films of niobium in superconducting double-barrier structures.

Abstract

We report the experimental results on the investigation of superconducting double-barrier structures with niobium interlayer and ${\mathrm{Al}}_{2}$${\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ barriers. The experimental results can be explained by an extreme enhancement of superconductivity in the interlayer in accordance with the quasiparticle balance model, where the energy dependence of the inelastic relaxation time of quasiparticles with energy close to the superconducting gap is taken into account. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.