Phase states of multiterminal mesoscopic normal-metal-superconductor structures

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Nov 23;99(21):217003. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.217003. Epub 2007 Nov 21.

Abstract

We study a mesoscopic normal-metal structure with four superconducting contacts, two of which are joined into a loop. The structure undergoes transitions between three (meta)stable states, with different phase configurations triggered by nonequilibrium conditions. These transitions result in spectacular changes in the magnetoresistance. We find a qualitative agreement between the experiments and a theory based on the quasiclassical Keldysh formalism.