Proximity-induced subgaps in Andreev billiards
Megjelenés dátuma: 2002
MTMT: 1386337
WoS ID: 000176907500031
Scopus ID: 0037194134
PubMed ID: 12144458
Absztrakt:
We examine the density of states of an Andreev billiard and show that any billiard with a finite upper cutoff in the path length distribution P(s) will possess an energy gap on the scale of the Thouless energy. An exact quantum mechanical calculation for different Andreev billiards gives good agreement with the semiclassical predictions when the energy dependent phase shift for Andreev reflections is properly taken into account. Based on this new semiclassical Bohr-Sommerfeld approximation of the density of states, we derive a simple formula for the energy gap. We show that the energy gap, in units of Thouless energy, may exceed the value predicted earlier from random matrix theory for chaotic billiards.