Superconducting Critical Fluctuations in Strong Electric Fields

Author(s)

Ionut Puica, Wolfgang Lang

Abstract

The non-Ohmic effect of a high electric field on both the longitudinal and transverse

magneto-transport properties of a layered superconductor near the superconducting

transition is studied in the frame of the Langevin approach to the time-dependent

Ginzburg-Landau equation. The in-plane and the out-of-plane fluctuation conductivities,

the excess Hall conductivity and the fluctuation Ettingshausen coefficient are

computed in the self-consistent Hartree approximation for an arbitrarily strong electric

field and a magnetic field perpendicular to the layers. Our results indicate that high

electric fields can be effectively used to suppress order-parameter fluctuations in hightemperature

superconductors and the similarity with the transition broadening under

strong magnetic fields is pointed out. The simultaneous application of the two fields

results in a slightly stronger suppression of the superconducting fluctuation in-plane

conductivity, compared to the case when the fields are applied individually, while the

relative suppression of the excess Hall conductivity turns out to be stronger than for

the paraconductivity. An important suppression of the Ettingshausen effect due to the

high electric field, much stronger than the effect of the magnetic field alone, is also

predicted. A supplementary broadening of the transition induced by a strong electric

field is found also for the out-of-plane resistivity, although the transverse conduction

appears to be stronger affected by the magnetic than by the electric field. The corresponding

expressions of the non-Ohmic transport properties for the two-dimensional

and three-dimensional cases are also inferred, and the effect of the magnetic field orientation

for an anisotropic bulk material is discussed.

Organisation(s)

Electronic Properties of Materials

Pages

1-36

No. of pages

Publication date

2007

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103033 Superconductivity

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