Supercurrent Amplification in Nonequilibrium Superconductors

Abstract: In ultrafast experiments on superconductors, a pump laser pulse often heats up the electronic system and suppresses the density of superfluid electrons. Subsequently, the electrons undergo a cooling process due to electron-phonon thermalization so that the superfluid density recovers in time. We show that if a supercurrent is initiated by a probe pulse in the cooling process, an intriguing phenomenon of 'supercurrent amplification' occurs, meaning that the net current grows in time with the increasing superfluid density. Using the Boltzmann kinetic equation, we uncover its microscopic origin as the momentum-relaxing scattering of quasi-particles by impurities and phonons, in stark contrast to the widely accepted intuition that impurities always attenuate currents. We further show that supercurrent amplification has important experimental manifestations, including the ultrafast Meissener effect and an optical reflectivity exceeding unity.