Maximum screening fields of superconducting multilayer structures

It is shown that a multilayer comprised of alternating thin superconducting and insulating layers on a thick substrate can fully screen the applied magnetic field exceeding the superheating fields $H_s$ of both the superconducting layers and the substrate, the maximum Meissner field is achieved at an optimum multilayer thickness. For instance, a dirty layer of thickness $\sim 0.1\; \mu$m at the Nb surface could increase $H_s\simeq 240$ mT of a clean Nb up to $H_s\simeq 290$ mT. Optimized multilayers of Nb$_3$Sn, NbN, some of the iron pnictides, or alloyed Nb deposited onto the surface of the Nb resonator cavities could potentially double the rf breakdown field, pushing the peak accelerating electric fields above 100 MV/m while protecting the cavity from dendritic thermomagnetic avalanches caused by local penetration of vortices

Influence of high magnetic fields on superconducting transition of one-dimensional Nb and MoGe nanowires

The effects of strong magnetic field on superconducting Nb and MoGe nanowires with diameter $\sim10$ nm have been studied. We have found that the Langer-Ambegaokar-McCumber-Halperin (LAMH) theory of thermally activated phase slips is applicable in a wide range of magnetic fields and describes well the temperature dependence of the wire resistance, over eleven orders of magnitude. The field dependence of the critical temperature, $T_{c}$, extracted from the LAMH fits is in good quantitative agreement with the theory of pair-breaking perturbations that takes into account both spin and orbital contributions. The extracted spin-orbit scattering time agrees with an estimate $\tau_{so}\simeq \tau(\hbar c/ Ze^{2})^{4}$, where $\tau$ is the elastic scattering time and $Z$ is the atomic number.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Unusual field and temperature dependence of Hall effect in graphene

We calculate the classic Hall conductivity and mobility of the undoped and doped (or in the gate voltage) graphene as a function of temperature, magnetic field, and carrier concentration. Carrier collisions with defects and acoustic phonons are taken into account. The Hall resistivity varies almost linearly with temperature. The magnetic field dependence of resistivity and mobility is anomalous in weak magnetic fields. There is the square root contribution from the field in the resistivity. The Hall mobility diverges logarithmically with the field for low doping.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, typos correcte

Pair-breaking in iron-pnictides

The puzzling features of the slopes of the upper critical field at the critical temperature $T_c$, $H^\prime_{c2}(T_c)\propto T_c$, and of the specific heat jump $\Delta C\propto T_c^3$ of iron-pnictides are interpreted as caused by a strong pair-breaking

Nonadiabatic effects of rattling phonons and 4f excitations in Pr(Os{1-x}Ru{x})4Sb12

In the skutterudite compounds the anharmonic 'rattling' oscillations of 4f-host ions in the surrounding Sb12 cages are found to have significant influence on the low temperature properties. Recently specific heat analysis of Pr(Os{1-x}Ru{x})4Sb12 has shown that the energy of crystalline electric field (CEF) singlet-triplet excitations increases strongly with Ru-concentration x and crosses the almost constant rattling mode frequency $\omega_0$ at about x ~ 0.65. Due to magnetoelastic interactions this may entail prominent nonadiabatic effects in inelastic neutron scattering (INS) intensity and quadrupolar susceptibility. Furthermore the Ru- concentration dependence of the superconducting Tc, notably the minimum at intermediate x is explained as a crossover effect from pairforming aspherical Coulomb scattering to pairbreaking exchange scattering.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Ultra-cold fermions in real or fictitious magnetic fields: The BCS-BEC evolution and the type-I--type-II transition

We study ultra-cold neutral fermion superfluids in the presence of fictitious magnetic fields, as well as charged fermion superfluids in the presence of real magnetic fields. Charged fermion superfluids undergo a phase transition from type-I to type-II superfluidity, where the magnetic properties of the superfluid change from being a perfect diamagnet without vortices to a partial diamagnet with the emergence of the Abrikosov vortex lattice. The transition from type-I to type-II superfluidity is tunned by changing the scattering parameter (interaction) for fixed density. We also find that neutral fermion superfluids such as $^6$Li and $^{40}$K are extreme type-II superfluids, and that they are more robust to the penetration of a fictitious magnetic field in the BCS-BEC crossover region near unitarity, where the critical fictitious magnetic field reaches a maximum as a function of the scattering parameter (interaction).Comment: 4+ pages with 2 figure

Differential conductance of point contacts between an iron-based superconductor and a normal metal

We present a theoretical description of the differential conductance of point contacts between a normal metal and a multi-band superconductor with extended s\pm pairing symmetry. We demonstrate that the interband impurity scattering broadens the coherent peak near the superconducting gap and significantly reduces its height even at relatively low scattering rates. This broadening is consistent with a number of recent experiments performed for both tunnel junctions and larger diffusive contacts. Our theory helps to better evaluate the energy gap of iron-based superconductors from point contact Andreev spectroscopy measurements.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Surface impedance of superconductors with magnetic impurities

Motivated by the problem of the residual surface resistance of the superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities, we develop a microscopic theory of the surface impedance of s-wave superconductors with magnetic impurities. We analytically calculate the current response function and surface impedance for a sample with spatially uniform distribution of impurities, treating magnetic impurities in the framework of the Shiba theory. The obtained general expressions hold in a wide range of parameter values, such as temperature, frequency, mean free path, and exchange coupling strength. This generality, on the one hand, allows for direct numerical implementation of our results to describe experimental systems (SRF cavities, superconducting qubits) under various practically relevant conditions. On the other hand, explicit analytical expressions can be obtained in a number of limiting cases, which makes possible further theoretical investigation of certain regimes. As a feature of key relevance to SRF cavities, we show that in the regime of "gapless superconductivity" the surface resistance exhibits saturation at zero temperature. Our theory thus explicitly demonstrates that magnetic impurities, presumably contained in the oxide surface layer of the SRF cavities, provide a microscopic mechanism for the residual resistance.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figs; v2: published versio