1996/04/22 by Kamran Behnia, K. Behnia, Behnia, K. +7
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) #Superconductivity in MgB2 and Alloys #cond-mat.supr-con #supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.supr-con/9604002
8 pages, 3 Encapsulated Postscript figures
arxiv created 1996/04/22 · openalex publication_date 1996/04/22 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The thermal conductivity of Zn-doped YBCO crystals was studied at low temperature (0.15 < T < 0.8 K) for different concentrations of Zn impurities. A small amount of Zn induces a dramatic decrease in the non-linear component of the low-temperature thermal conductivity. Moreover, the magnitude of the linear component (obtained by extrapolating the data to T=0) is found to depend on Zn concentration. After an initial decrease, this linear term, associated with the electronic contribution to the conductivity, increases with increasing Zn dopage. Such an increase is consistent with the introduction of low-energy excitations by Zn impurities as expected for a dx2-y2 superconducting state in contrast to an anisotropic s-wave gap. The results are compared to quantitative predictions of available theoretical models.