Proximity effect in superconductor/dilute magnetic metal hybrid structures

The low-temperature resistance, R(T), of narrow AuFe Kondo wires in proximity to superconducting Al films has been measured. As the temperature, T, is lowered, R(T) shows a rapid drop below the superconducting transition of the Al films, As the temperature is lowered further, R(T) starts to increase, eventually exceeding the normal state resistance of the AuFe wire. While the rapid drop in the high-temperature resistance can apparently be attributed to the superconducting proximity effect in AuFe wires, the behavior of the low-temperature resistance can be attributed to the Kondo effect, but is moderately suppressed by long-range superconducting pairing correlations