Higgs amplitude mode in ballistic superconducting hybrid junctions

Abstract

In superconductors (SC), the Higgs amplitude mode is a coherent oscillation of the order parameter typically generated by THz laser irradiation. In this paper we propose to probe the Higgs mode using electronic transport in ballistic superconducting hybrid devices. We first confirm the existence of a non-zero amplitude mode in the clean case using the Keldysh-Eilenberger formalism. We then investigate two different geometries, respectively a normal-insulating-superconductor (NIS) tunnel junction and a NSN junction with transparent interfaces, the superconductor being irradiated in both situations. In the NIS case, the Higgs manifests itself in the second-order AC current response which is resonant at the Higgs frequency. In the NSN case, the DC differential conductance allows to probe the gaps generated by the Higgs mode in the Floquet spectrum.