Operation of a superconducting nanowire quantum interference device with mesoscopic leads

A theory describing the operation of a superconducting nanowire quantum interference device NQUID is presented. The device consists of a pair of thin-film superconducting leads connected by a pair of topologically parallel ultranarrow superconducting wires. It exhibits intrinsic electrical resistance, due to thermally activated dissipative fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. Attention is given to the dependence of this resistance on the strength of an externally applied magnetic field aligned perpendicular to the leads, for lead dimensions such that there is essentially complete and uniform penetration of the leads by the magnetic field. This regime, in which at least one of the lead dimensions—length or width—lies between the superconducting coherence and penetration lengths, is referred to as the mesoscopic regime. The magnetic field causes a pronounced oscillation of the device resistance, with a period not dominated by the Aharonov-Bohm effect through the area enclosed by the wires and the film edges but, rather, in terms of the geometry of the leads, in contrast to the well-known Little-Parks resistance of thin-walled superconducting cylinders. A detailed theory, encompassing this phenomenology quantitatively, is developed through extensions, to the setting of parallel superconducting wires, of the Ivanchenko-Zil’berman-Ambegaokar-Halperin theory of intrinsic resistive fluctuations in a current-biased Josephson junction and the Langer-Ambegaokar-McCumber-Halperin theory of intrinsic resistive fluctuations in a superconducting wire. In particular, it is demonstrated that via the resistance of the NQUID, the wires act as a probe of spatial variations in the superconducting order parameter along the perimeter of each lead: in essence, a superconducting phase gradiometer.