Optical and Tunneling Studies of Energy Gap in Superconducting Niobium Nitride Films

We have prepared an epitaxial niobium nitride (NbN) film and NbN/AlN/NbN tunnel junctions to investigate the energy gaps. By measuring the optical conductivity spectrum of a 41-nm-thick film with the critical temperature (T-C) of about 14 K by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, we obtained the gap frequency of about 1.2 THz. An ill-defined gap was suggested due to the broadening of the onset of absorption as the temperature increases. On the other hand, the current-voltage curve measurement of the tunnel junctions showed the current rise at the gap voltage of 5.6 mV (corresponding to 1.4 THz) with a smeared shape as the temperature increases. We found that both gap broadenings can be explained by introducing a temperature-dependent imaginary energy gap part into the superconducting energy gap, corresponding to a finite quasi-particle lifetime in the NbN films.