Experimental Observation of the Relaxation Time of the Order Parameter in Superconductors

Abstract

We have measured directly the relaxation time $\tau$ for the superconducting energy gap. We show that near the superconducting transition temperature ${\tau }_c$ the relaxation time diverges as predicted by several authors. By also measuring the equilibrium gap $\Delta$ we find $\tau \propto {\Delta }^{-1\mathrm{}}$ very near $T_c$ in agreement with the calculations of Schmid and Shön.