No Arabic abstract
We show on a few examples of one-band materials with spheroidal Fermi surfaces and anisotropic order parameters that anisotropies $gamma_H$ of the upper critical field and $gamma_lambda$ of the London penetration depth depend on temperature, the feature commonly attributed to multi-band superconductors. The parameters $gamma_H$ and $gamma_lambda$ may have opposite temperature dependencies or may change in the same direction depending on Fermi surface shape and on character of the gap nodes. For two-band systems, the behavior of anisotropies is affected by the ratios of bands densities of states, Fermi velocities, anisotropies, and order parameters. We investigate in detail the conditions determining the directions of temperature dependences of the two anisotropy factors.
We study the effects of anisotropic order parameters on the temperature dependence of London penetration depth anisotropy $gamma_lambda(T)$. After MgB$_2$, this dependence is commonly attributed to distinct gaps on multi-band Fermi surfaces in superconductors. We have found, however, that the anisotropy parameter may depend on temperature also in one-band materials with anisotropic order parameters $Delta(T,k_F)$, a few such examples are given. We have found also that for different order parameters, the temperature dependence of $Delta(T)/Delta(0)$ can be represented with good accuracy by the interpolation suggested by D. Einzel, J. Low Temp. Phys, {bf 131}, 1 (2003), which simplifies considerably the evaluation of $gamma_lambda(T)$. Of particular interest is mixed order parameters of two symmetries for which $gamma_lambda(T)$ may go through a maximum for a certain relative weight of two phases. Also, for this case, we find that the ratio $Delta_{max}(0)/T_c$ may exceed substantially the weak coupling limit of 1.76. It, however, does not imply a strong coupling, rather it is due to significantly anisotropic angular variation of $Delta$.
The London penetration depth $lambda$ is the basic length scale for electromagnetic behavior in a superconductor. Precise measurements of $lambda$ as a function of temperature, field, and impurity scattering have been instrumental in revealing the nature of the order parameter and pairing interactions in a variety of superconductors discovered over the past decades. Here we recount our development of the tunnel-diode resonator technique to measure $lambda$ as a function of temperature and field in small single crystal samples. We discuss the principles and applications of this technique to study unconventional superconductivity in the copper oxides and other materials such as iron-based superconductors. The technique has now been employed by several groups worldwide as a precision measurement tool for the exploration of new superconductors.
We report combined experimental and theoretical analysis of superconductivity in CaK(Fe$_{1-x}$Ni$_x$)$_4$As$_4$ (CaK1144) for $x=$0, 0.017 and 0.034. To obtain the superfluid density, $rho=left(1+Delta lambda_L(T)/lambda_L(0) right)^{-2}$, the temperature dependence of the London penetration depth, $Delta lambda_L (T)$, was measured by using tunnel-diode resonator (TDR) and the results agreed with the microwave coplanar resonator (MWR) with the small differences accounted for by considering a three orders of magnitude higher frequency of MWR. The absolute value of $lambda_L (T ll T_c) approx lambda_L(0)$ was measured by using MWR, $lambda_L (mathrm{5~K}) approx 170 pm 20$ nm, which agreed well with the NV-centers in diamond optical magnetometry that gave $lambda_L (mathrm{5~K}) approx 196 pm 12$ nm. The experimental results are analyzed within the Eliashberg theory, showing that the superconductivity of CaK1144 is well described by the nodeless s$_{pm}$ order parameter and that upon Ni doping the interband interaction increases.
Temperature and magnetic field dependent measurements of the microwave surface impedance of superconducting LaFeAsO$_{0.9}$F$_{0.1}$ (Tc $approx$ 26K) reveal a very large upper critical field ($B_{rm c2} approx 56$T) and a large value of the depinning frequency ($f_{0}approx 6$GHz); together with an upper limit for the effective London penetration depth, $lambda_{rm eff} le 200 rm nm$, our results indicate a strong similarity between this system and the high-$T_{rm c}$ superconducting cuprates.
We argue that the method, which was used for the analysis of equilibrium magnetization data in the original publication, is not adequate to the experimental situation. As a result, the temperature dependencies of the upper critical field Hc2(T) and the magnetic field penetration depth lambda(T), obtained in this work, are incorrect. Using a different approach, we reanalyze the presented experimental data and demonstrate that the normalized Hc2(T) curves are rather different from those presented in the original publication and do not follow predictions of the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg theory. Another interesting observation is that the Hc2(T) dependencies for two samples with close levels of doping are rather different.