Single-atom point contacts in the superconducting state

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Abstract
Recently it has become possible to fabricate long-term stable point contacts with a constriction as small as a single atom. Here we present experimental investigations on one-atom point contacts in the superconducting state. An applied pressure or tensile force on this atom results in large effects in the superconducting properties. Furthermore, we show that one-atom point contacts can be broken and reestablished in a perfectly reproducible manner.