Experimental evidence for parity-based 2 e periodicity in a superconducting single-electron tunneling transistor

✍ Scribed by Tuominen, M. T.; Hergenrother, J. M.; Tighe, T. S.; Tinkham, M.

• Book ID: 121421088
• Publisher: The American Physical Society
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 283 KB
• Volume: 69
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.69.1997

✦ Synopsis

We present experimental current-voltage (I-V) measurements on an Al-A1203-Al single-electron tun- neling transistor in the superconducting state. We observe a variety of features which result from Cooper-pair tunneling processes. At low bias voltages and low temperatures we find that the I-V curve is 2e periodic with respect to the gate-induced charge. Remarkably, this periodicity persists up to 300 mK, a behavior which we interpret as strong evidence of an incremental free energy which depends on whether the number of electrons on the superconducting island is even or odd.