Quasiparticle recombination time in superconducting lead and the quasiparticle nonequilibrium energy distribution of optically perturbed tin superconductors

The effective quasiparticle recombination time in Pb superconductors was experimentally measured by optically perturbing Pb-oxide-Pb tunnel junctions. Analysis by carefully studying the optically modulated energy gap as a function of temperature determined the effective recombination time to be 2.06 x 10-10 T-1/2e/sup δ//sup kT/ +- 30%. Careful studies on optically perturbed Sn-oxide-Sn tunnel junctions provide information on the quasiparticle nonequilibrium energy distribution function. Initial data compared closer with a modified heating model describing the photo-excited quasi particles rather than with an effective chemical potential model. However, an analysis of the IV characteristic of voltage-biased Sn junctions numerically unfolded the exact energy distribution from an integral equation. The results compare favorably to the theory of Chang and Scalapino, who calculate from the coupled Boltzmann kinetic equations the phonon and quasiparticle energy distributions. Lastly, a brief study describes Inelastic Electron Tunneling Spectroscopy as applied to the problem of the identification of altered DNA bases. The technique demonstrates an exciting potential application of physics to a contemporary problem in molecular biology