Voltage-induced thin-film superconductivity in high magnetic fields

Abstract

We predict that superconductivity in mesoscopic thin films can be stabilized in high magnetic fields if the superconductor is driven out of equilibrium by a DC voltage bias. For realistic material parameters and temperatures, we show that superconductivity is restored in fields many times larger than the Chandrasekhar-Clogston limit. After motivating the effect analytically, we perform rigorous numerical calculations to corroborate these findings and present concrete experimental signatures. On the technical side, we also introduce a formulation of the nonequilibrium kinetic equations that both generalizes and simplifies previous results.