Superconductor fluctuations in tunneling junctions below the transition temperature

The fluctuation current through a Josephson junction has been calculated, one side of which is a stable superconductor, the other a fluctuating one. The theoretical functions cover the frequency range 0 < 5.5. They reflect the characteristic experimental features in a consistent picture. In addition, an expression for the relaxation time of the order parameter modulus has been derived over the whole gap region for temperatures close to T _c, based on a pair-breaking mechanism.Work supported in part by the Office of Naval Research.Postdoctoral fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; on leave of absence from Technische Universität München.