2003/12/18 by A. Yu. Rusanov, M. B. S. Hesselberth, J. Aarts · 53 citations
Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Amorphous solid #Chemistry #Coherence length #Condensed matter physics #Crystallography #Current (fluid) #Dissipation #Iron-based superconductors research #Lambda #London penetration depth #Magnetic field #Materials science #Mechanics #Penetration depth #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Superconducting Materials and Applications #Superconductivity #Thermodynamics #Vortex #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.70.024510
published in Physical Review B 70(2) (American Physical Society) · 5 pages, 6 figures
arxiv created 2003/12/18 · openalex publication_date 2004/07/21 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report on measuring the depairing current Jdp in thin superconducting films as a function of temperature. The main difficulties in such measurements are that heating has to be avoided, either due to contacts, or to vortex flow. The latter is almost unavoidable since the sample cross section is usually larger than the superconducting coherence length \ensuremathξs and the magnetic field penetration depth \ensuremathλs. On the other hand, vortex flow is helpful since it homogenizes the distribution of the current across the sample. We used a pulsed current method, which allows us to overcome the difficulties caused by dissipation and measured the depairing current in films of thin polycrystalline Nb (low \ensuremathλs, low specific resistance \ensuremathρ) and amorphous Mo0.7Ge0.3 (high \ensuremathλs, high \ensuremathρ), structured in the shape of bridges of various width. The experimental values of Jdp for different bridge dimensions are compared with theoretical predictions by Kupriyanov and Lukichev for dirty limit superconductors. For the smallest samples we find a very good agreement with theory, over essentially the whole temperature interval below the superconducting critical temperature.