Experimental studies of resistive transition to superconductivity in thin films of thallium and tin

Thesis/Dissertation · Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1978

OSTI ID:6316154

Saxena, A K

The effect of thermodynamic fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter on the resistive transition to the superconducting state in thin films of thallium and tin has been investigated experimentally. The excess electrical conductivity ..cap alpha..' in thin films has been measured above the transition temperature T/sub c/ in the absence and presence of magnetic fields. A number of thallium and tin films have been investigated in this work. The measured excess electrical conductivity was found to be about five times larger than that predicted by the A-L theory for films of low sheet resistance R/sub s/, and about two times larger for films with high R/sub s/, thus confirming the presence of so-called Maki-Thompson contribution to ..cap alpha..'. To fit data to any of these theoretical works, it was necessary to assume the presence of a pair-breaking interaction even in the absence of external fields. The pair-breaking parameter delta, which was found to depend linearly on the sheet resistance R/sub s/ of the film plus an intrinsic term delta/sub 0/ (or delta thermal) whose origin lies in the electron-phonon interaction. The magnetic field dependence of ..cap alpha..' was also investigated in few films. It was observed that the resistive transition became sharper as the applied magnetic field parallel to the film was increased. This result could also be explained in terms of Maki-Thompson theory which says that as delta is increased, the Maki-Thompson contribution should become smaller in comparison to A-L contribution.

• Research Organization: Saint John's Univ., Jamaica, NY (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6316154
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
THALLIUM
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
TIN
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
MAGNETIC FIELDS
SUPERCONDUCTING FILMS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
TRANSITION TEMPERATURE
DATA
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELEMENTS
FILMS
INFORMATION
METALS
NUMERICAL DATA
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
360104* - Metals & Alloys- Physical Properties
656102 - Solid State Physics- Superconductivity- Acoustic
Electronic
Magnetic
Optical
& Thermal Phenomena- (-1987)