Abstract
We analyze the effect of electron-electron interactions on Andreev current and shot noise in diffusive hybrid structures composed of a normal metal attached to a superconductor via a weakly transmitting interface. We demonstrate that at voltages/temperatures below the Thouless energy of a normal metal, Coulomb interaction yields a reduction of both Andreev current and its noise by a constant factor which essentially depends on the system dimensionality. For quasi-one-dimensional (1D) structures this factor is , where and are, respectively, the number of conducting channels and dimensionless conductance of a normal metal. At voltages above the Thouless energy the interaction correction to Andreev current and shot noise acquires an additional voltage dependence which turns out to be a power-law in the quasi-1D limit.
- Received 21 November 2005
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.73.184522
©2006 American Physical Society