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Register a new userSpecific heat of the 38-K superconductor MgB_2 in the normal and superconducting state: bulk evidence for a double gap
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The specific heat of two polycrystalline samples of MgB_2 is presented and analyzed (2 - 300 K, 0 - 16 T), together with magnetic properties. The main characteristics are a low density of states at the Fermi level, high phonon frequencies, and an anomalous temperature- and field- dependence of the specific heat at T < T_c. A two-gap model with a gap ratio of 3:1 fits the specific heat in zero field. The smaller gap is washed out by a field of 0.5 T.
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The specific heat C of a sintered polycrystalline sample of MgB2 with a bulk superconducting transition temperature Tc=36.7 K is measured as a function of the temperature (2-300 K) and magnetic field (0-16 T), together with magnetic properties (normal-state susceptibility, superconducting state magnetization, etc.). The Sommerfeld constant gamma=0.89+-0.05 mJ/K^2/gat (2.7 mJ/K^2/mol) is determined in the normal state above Hc2. The normal- and superconducting state entropies are equal at Tc. Several moments of the phonon density of states are obtained from the lattice specific heat. We report bulk values for: the thermodynamic critical field, the slope of the upper critical field, the Ginzburg-Landau parameter, the coherence length, the lower critical field, the London penetration depth. These results characterize MgB2 as a type-II superconductor. The nearly quadratic dependence of C(T) versus T at T<<Tc, its non-linear field dependence, and the discrepancy between the electron-phonon coupling constant lambda_ep as determined by the renormalization of the electron density-of-states (lambda_ep=0.6) and by McMillans equation for isotropic superconductors (lambda_ep=1.1), are inconsistent with a single isotropic gap. In addition to high phonon frequencies, anisotropy or two-band gap structure may explain why the critical temperature of this superconductor is high in spite of its low condensation energy, which does not exceed 1/16 of that of YBa2Cu3O7 and 1/4 of that of Nb3Sn.
We show that the specific heat of the superconductor MgB_2 (MgB2) in zero field, for which significant non-BCS features have been reported, can be fitted, essentially within experimental error, over the entire range of temperature to T_c by a phenomenological two-gap model. The resulting gap parameters agree with previous determinations from band-structure calculations, and from various spectroscopic experiments. The determination from specific heat, a bulk property, shows that the presence of two superconducting gaps in MgB_2 is a volume effect.
We studied the effect of disorder on the superconducting properties of polycrystalline MgB_2 by specific-heat measurements. In the pristine state, these measurements give a bulk confirmation of the presence of two superconducting gaps with 2 Delta 0 / k_B T_c = 1.3 and 3.9 with nearly equal weights. The scattering introduced by irradiation suppresses T_c and tends to average the two gaps although less than predicted by theory. We also found that by a suitable irradiation process by fast neutrons, a substantial bulk increase of dH_{c2}/dT at T_c can be obtained without sacrificing more than a few degrees in T_c. The upper critical field of the sample after irradiation exceeds 28 T at T goes to 0 K.
We investigate the specific heat of ultra-pure single crystals of Sr2RuO4, a leading candidate of a spin-triplet superconductor. We for the first time obtained specific-heat evidence of the first-order superconducting transition below 0.8 K, namely divergent-like peaks and clear hysteresis in the specific heat at the upper critical field. The first-order transition occurs for all in-plane field directions. The specific-heat features for the first-order transition are found to be highly sensitive to sample quality; in particular, the hysteresis becomes totally absent in a sample with slightly lower quality. These thermodynamic observations provide crucial bases to understand the unconventional pair-breaking effect responsible for the first-order transition.
Recently it was discovered that the jump in the specific heat at the superconducting transition in pnictide superconductors is proportional to the superconducting transition temperature to the third power, with the superconducting transition temperature varying from 2 to 25 Kelvin including underdoped and overdoped cases. Relying on standard scaling notions for the thermodynamics of strongly interacting quantum critical states, it is pointed out that this behavior is consistent with a normal state that is a quantum critical metal undergoing a pairing instability.
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