Quasiparticle recombination in a superconductor with an $s$-wave gap is typically dominated by a phonon bottleneck effect. We have studied how a magnetic field changes this recombination process in metallic thin-film superconductors, finding that the quasiparticle recombination process is significantly slowed as the field increases. The magnetic field disrupts the time-reversal symmetry of the pairs, giving them a finite lifetime and decreasing the energy gap. The field could also polarize the quasiparticle spins, producing different populations of spin-up and spin-down quasiparticles. Both processes favor slower recombination; in our materials we conclude that strong spin-orbit scattering reduces the spin polarization, leaving the field-induced gap reduction as the dominant effect and accounting quantitatively for the observed recombination rate reduction.

• Received 21 November 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.140502