No Arabic abstract
The confinement of a superconductor in a thin film changes its Fermi-level density of states and is expected to change its critical temperature $T_c$. Previous calculations have reported large discontinuities of $T_c$ when the chemical potential coincides with a subband edge. By solving the BCS gap equation exactly, we show that such discontinuities are artifacts and that $T_c$ is a continuous function of the film thickness. We also find that $T_c$ is reduced in thin films compared with the bulk if the confinement potential is lower than a critical value, while for stronger confinement $T_c$ increases with decreasing film thickness, reaches a maximum, and eventually drops to zero. Our numerical results are supported by several exact solutions. We finally interpret experimental data for ultrathin lead thin films in terms of a thickness-dependent effective mass.
The pairing temperature of superconducting thin films is expected to display, within the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory, oscillations as a function of the film thickness. We show that the pattern of these oscillations switches between two different periodicities at a density-dependent value of the superconducting coupling. The transition is most abrupt in the anti-adiabatic regime, where the Fermi energy is less than the Debye energy. To support our numerical data, we provide new analytical expressions for the chemical potential and the pairing temperature as a function of thickness, which only differ from the exact solution at weak coupling by exponentially-small corrections.
The free energy, non-gradient terms of the Ginzburg-Landau expansion, and the jump of the specific heat of a multiband anisotropic-gap clean BCS superconductor are derived in the framework of a separable-kernel approximation. Results for a two-band superconductor, d-wave superconductor, and some recent models for MgB_2 are derived as special cases.
We establish quasi-two-dimensional thin films of iron-based superconductors (FeSCs) as a new high-temperature platform for hosting intrinsic time-reversal-invariant helical topological superconductivity (TSC). Based on the combination of Dirac surface state and bulk extended $s$-wave pairing, our theory should be directly applicable to a large class of experimentally established FeSCs, opening a new TSC paradigm. In particular, an applied electric field serves as a topological switch for helical Majorana edge modes in FeSC thin films, allowing for an experimentally feasible design of gate-controlled helical Majorana circuits. Applying an in-plane magnetic field drives the helical TSC phase into a higher-order TSC carrying corner-localized Majorana zero modes. Our proposal should enable the experimental realization of helical Majorana fermions.
We develop a squeezed-field path-integral representation for BCS superconductors utilizing a generalized completeness relation of squeezed-fermionic coherent states. We derive a Grassmann path integral of fermionic quasiparticles that explicitly includes the collective degrees of freedom of the order-parameter dynamics governed by the classical Anderson pseudospin model. Based on this method, we analyze the spectral function of the single-particle excitations, and show that the squeezed-field path integral for the BCS Hamiltonian describes the dispersion relation and the mass gap of the Higgs amplitude mode of BCS superconductors, as well as the quasiparticle and quasihole excitation branches described by the BCS mean-field approximation.
We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer condensate subject to a periodic drive. We demonstrate that the combined effect of drive and interactions results in emerging parametric resonances, analogous to a vertically driving pendulum. In particular, Arnold tongues appear when the driving frequency matches $2Delta_0/n$, with $n$ a natural number, and $Delta_0$ the equilibrium gap parameter. Inside the Arnold tongues we find a commensurate time-crystal condensate which retains the $U(1)$ symmetry breaking of the parent superfluid/superconducting phase and shows an additional time-translational symmetry breaking. Outside these tongues, the synchronized collective Higgs mode found in quench protocols is stabilized without the need of a strong perturbation. Our results are directly relevant to cold-atom and condensed-matter systems and do not require very long energy relaxation times to be observed.