Ivar Giaever used electron tunnelling through a thin insulating barrier to measure the superconducting energy gap. The available electronic states on either side determine which tunnelling processes contribute at a given voltage. A gap suppresses low-energy current, so the current-voltage curve becomes a spectroscopic probe of the superconducting state. Following the feature with temperature connects an electrical measurement with a microscopic excitation energy, rather than merely demonstrating low resistance.[ref]
Energy Gap in Superconductors Measured by Electron Tunneling by Ivar Giaever. Physical Review Letters 5, 147 (1960), tunnelling measurement of the excitation gap
A physicist.[ref]
Professional profile of Ivar Giaever. Independent professional profile
[ref]https://archives.rpi.edu/institute-history/commencement-speakers-honorary-degree-recipients?page=5. Independent professional profile
Portrait of Ivar Giaever
. Bruce Sampson / NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet; 12 March 2010; existing Commons crop by TommyG. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
Ivar Giaever is a Norwegian-American physicist and Nobel laureate known for his work in the field of condensed matter physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973, along with Leo Esaki and Brian D. Josephson, for their experiments on tunneling phenomena in semiconductors. Giaever's research contributed to the understanding of how electrons can tunnel through barriers, which has implications for the development of various electronic devices.
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