Nonconstant electronic density of states tunneling inversion for A15 superconductors: Nb3Sn

We present new specific heat data for Nb3Sn, a well-known technically applied superconductor with a critical temperature T_c ~ 18 K, in the temperature range from 1.2 to 200 K in zero magnetic field, and from 1.5 to 22 K in fields H <= 16 T. The particularly dense and homogeneous polycrystalline sample used for this study is characterized in detail. We determine the bulk upper critical field H_c2(T) from specific heat data, and the Sommerfeld constant Gamma from the entropy S...

We present local tunneling spectroscopy experiments in the superconducting and ferromagnetic phases of the reentrant superconductor ErRh$_4$B$_{4}$. The tunneling conductance curves jump from showing normal to superconducting features within a few mK close to the ferromagnetic transition temperature, with a clear hysteretic behavior. Within the ferromagnetic phase, we do not detect any superconducting correlations. Within the superconducting phase we find a peculiar V-shaped ...

We report results for the superconducting transition temperature and anisotropic energy gap for pure Niobium based on Eliashberg's equations and electron and phonon band structures computed from density functional theory. The electronic band structure is used to construct the Fermi surface and calculate the Fermi velocity at each point on the Fermi surface.The phonon bands are in excellent agreement with inelastic neutron scattering data. The corresponding phonon density of s...

We report the evolution of superconducting properties as a function of disorder in homogeneously disordered epitaxial NbN thin films grown on (100) MgO substrates, studied through a combination of electrical transport, Hall Effect and tunneling measurements. The thickness of all our films are >50nm much larger than the coherence length ~5nm. The effective disorder in different films encompasses a large range, with the Ioffe-Regel parameter varying in the range kFl~1.38-8.77. ...

Inelastic tunneling spectroscopy of Pb islands on Cu(111) obtained by scanning tunneling microscopy below 1K provides a direct access to the local Eliashberg function of the islands with high energy resolution. The Eliashberg function describes the electron-phonon interaction causing conventional superconductivity. The measured Eliashberg function strongly depends on the local thickness of the Pb nanostructures and shows a sharp maximum when quantum well states of the Pb isla...

Fine structures in the tunneling spectra of superconductors have been widely used to identify fingerprints of the interaction responsible for Cooper pairing. Here we show that for scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) of Pb, the inclusion of inelastic tunneling processes is crucial for the proper interpretation of these fine structures. For STM the usual McMillan inversion algorithm of tunneling spectra must therefore be modified to include inelastic tunneling events, an insigh...

Antisite defects play a critical role in Nb$_3$Sn superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavity physics. Such defects are the primary form of disorder in Nb$_3$Sn, and are responsible for stoichiometry variations, including experimentally observed tin-depleted regions within grains and tin-rich regions around grain boundaries. But why they cluster to form regions of different stoichiometries and how they affect the SRF properties of Nb$_3$Sn cavities are not fully understood. ...

We present local tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy measurements at low temperatures in single crystalline samples of the magnetic superconductor ErNi2B2C. The electronic local density of states shows a striking departure from s-wave BCS theory with a finite value at the Fermi level, which amounts to half of the normal phase density of states.

The cubic A15 structure metals, with over 60 distinct member compounds, held the crown of highest Tc superconductor starting in 1954 with the discovery of Tc=18 K in Nb3Sn. Tc increased over the next 20 years until the discovery in 1973 of Tc = 22.3 K (optimized to approximately 23 K a year later) in sputtered films of Nb3Ge. Attempts were made to produce - via explosive compression - higher (theorized to be 31-35 K) transition temperatures in not stable at ambient conditions...

Using \textit{ab initio} calculation, we investigate systematically the structural and electronic properties of Ni$_{2}$Nb$_{1+x}$Sn$_{1-x}$ ($x$ = 0, 0.25, 0.50). Here, projector augmented wave approach (PAW) implemented in the Vienna \textit{ab initio} simulation package (VASP) within generalized gradient approximation (GGA) for the exchange-correlation functional has been used. In this article, it is reported that though Ni$_{2}$NbSn and Ni$_{2}$Nb$_{1.25}$Sn$_{0.75}$ have...