title: Inherent stochasticity of superconductor-resistor switching behavior in nanowires.
abstract: We study the stochastic dynamics of superconductive-resistive switching in hysteretic current-biased superconducting nanowires undergoing phase-slip fluctuations. We evaluate the mean switching time using the master-equation formalism, and hence obtain the distribution of switching currents. We find that as the temperature is reduced this distribution initially broadens; only at lower temperatures does it show the narrowing with cooling naively expected for phase slips that are thermally activated. We also find that although several phase-slip events are generally necessary to induce switching, there is an experimentally accessible regime of temperatures and currents for which just one single phase-slip event is sufficient to induce switching, via the local heating it causes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Nayana
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pekker
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Goldbart
mesh_terms: D003080:Cold Temperature; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D017097:Electric Impedance; D008956:Models, Chemical; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry*; D013269:Stochastic Processes
chemical_list: D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D004247:DNA