No Arabic abstract
The multilayer thin film structure of the superconductor has been proposed by A. Gurevich to enhance the maximum gradient of SRF cavities. The lower critical field Hc1 at which the vortex starts penetrating the superconducting material will be improved by coating Nb with thin film superconductor such as NbN. It is expected that the enhancement of Hc1 depends on the thickness of each layer. In order to determine the optimum thickness of each layer and to compare the measurement results with the theoretical prediction proposed by T. Kubo, we developed the Hc1 measurement system using the third harmonic response of the applied AC magnetic field at KEK. For the Hc1 measurement without the influence of the edge or the shape effects, the AC magnetic field can be applied locally by the solenoid coil of 5mm diameter in our measurement system. ULVAC made the NbN-SiO2 multilayer thin film samples of various NbN thicknesses. In this report, the measurement result of the bulk Nb sample and NbN-SiO2 multilayer thin film samples of different thickness of NbN layer will be discussed.
We develop a lower critical field (Hc1) measurement system using the third-harmonic response of an applied AC magnetic field from a solenoid coil positioned above a superconducting sample. Parameter Hc1 is measured via detection of the third-harmonic component, which drastically changes when a vortex begins to penetrate the superconductor with temperature increase. The magnetic field locally applied to one side of the sample mimics the magnetic field within superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities and prevents edge effects of the superconducting sample. With this approach, our measurement system can potentially characterize surface-engineered SRF materials such as Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor multilayer structure (S-I-S structure). As a validation test, we measure the temperature dependence of Hc1 of two high-RRR bulk Nb samples and obtain results consistent with the literature. We also confirm that our system can apply magnetic fields of at least 120 mT at 4-5 K without any problem of heat generation of the coil. This field value is higher than those reported in previous works and makes it possible to more accurately estimate Hc1 at lower temperatures.
The vortex penetration field of the multilayer coating model with a single superconductor layer and a single insulator layer formed on a bulk superconductor are derived. The same formula can be applied to a model with a superconductor layer formed on a bulk superconductor without an insulator layer.
A comment to the authors SRF Conference pre-print [1] was submitted by A. Gurevich to the arXiv [2]. In this response, we show that the arguments used in the comment are not valid. [1] arXiv:1309.3239 [2] arXiv:1309.5626
The recent theoretical study on the multilayer-coating model published in Applied Physics Letters [1] is reviewed. Magnetic-field attenuation behavior in a multilayer coating model is different from a semi-infinite superconductor and a superconducting thin film. This difference causes that of the vortex-penetration field at which the Bean-Livingston surface barrier disappears. A material with smaller penetration depth, such as a pure Nb, is preferable as the substrate for pushing up the vortex-penetration field of the superconductor layer. The field limit of the whole structure of the multilayer coating model is limited not only by the vortex-penetration field of the superconductor layer, but also by that of the substrate. Appropriate thicknesses of superconductor and insulator layers can be extracted from contour plots of the field limit of the multilayer coating model given in Ref.[1].
In a search for a simple proximity system of a topological insulator and a superconductor for studying the role of surface versus bulk effects by gating, we report here on a first step toward this goal, namely the choice of such a system and its characterization. We chose to work with thin film bilayers of grainy 5 nm thick NbN films as the superconductor, overlayed with 20 nm thick topological layer of $rm Bi_2Se_3$ and compare the transport results to those obtained on a 5 nm thick reference NbN film on the same wafer. Bilayers with ex-situ and in-situ prepared $rm NbN-Bi_2Se_3$ interfaces were studied and two kinds of proximity effects were found. At high temperatures just below the superconducting transition, all bilayers showed a conventional proximity effect where the topological $rm Bi_2Se_3$ suppresses the onset or mid-transition $T_c$ of the superconducting NbN films by about 1 K. At low temperatures, a cross-over of the resistance versus temperature curves of the bilayer and reference NbN film occurs, where the bilayers show enhancement of $T_c(R=0)$, $I_c$ (the supercurrent) and the Andreev conductance, as compared to the bare NbN films. This indicates that superconductivity is induced in the $rm Bi_2Se_3$ layer at the interface region in between the NbN grains. Thus an inverse proximity effect in the topological material is demonstrated.