Direct picosecond measurement of photoinduced Cooper-pair breaking in lead

Authors:

1 November 1992

journal article
research article
Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B

Vol. 46 (17) , 11153-11156
DOI:10.1103/physrevb.46.11153
PMID:10002986

Abstract

We report on a direct kinetic measurement of Cooper-pair breaking in superconducting lead. A 100-fs pulse of visible light was used to excite a thin-film lead sample, while the Cooper-pair density was optically probed using an ultrashort pulse of broadband far-infrared radiation. Subsequent to the absorption of the visible light, a rapid (<1 ps) change in the far-infrared optical transmission was observed, corresponding to the breaking of Cooper pairs and the collapse of the superconducting gap.

Keywords

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