FIELD-THEORY OF MESOSCOPIC FLUCTUATIONS IN SUPERCONDUCTOR NORMAL-METAL SYSTEMS/

The thermodynamic and transport properties of normal disordered conduc tors are strongly influenced by the proximity of a superconductor. A c ooperation between mesoscopic coherence and Andreev scattering of part icles from the superconductor generates new types of interference phen omena. A field theoretic approach is introduced which is capable of ex ploring both the averaged properties and mesoscopic fluctuations of su perconductor/normal-metal systems. As an example the method is applied to the study of the level statistics of a SNS junction. (C) 1998 Amer ican Institute of Physics. [S0021-3640(98)00401-0].