This article is cited in 87 papers

REVIEWS OF TOPICAL PROBLEMS

Superconductors with excess quasiparticles

V. F. Elesin^a, Yu. V. Kopaev<sup>b

a</sup> Moscow Engineering Physics Institute
^b P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute, the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow

Abstract: This review presents a systematic kinetic theory of nonequilibrium phenomena in superconductors with excess quasiparticles created by electromagnetic or tunnel injection. The energy distributions of excess quasiparticles and of nonequilibrium phonons, dependence of the order parameter on the power and frequency (or intensity) of the electromagnetic field, magnetic properties of nonequilibrium superconductors, I–V curves of superconductor-insulator-superconductor junctions, and other properties are described in detail. The stability of superconducting states far from thermodynamic equilibrium is investigated and it is shown that characteristic instabilities leading to the formation of nonuniform states of a new type or phase transitions of the first kind are inherent to superconductors with excess quasiparticles. The results are compared with experimental data.

UDC: 537.312.62

PACS: 74.20.-z

DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.0133.198102c.0259

 English version: Physics–Uspekhi, 1981, 24:2, 116–141