No Arabic abstract
The electronic properties of the carbon substituted MgB$_2$ single crystals are reported. The carbon substitution drops T$_c$ below 2 K. In-plane resistivity shows a remarkable increase in residual resistivity by C-substitution, while the change of in-plane/out-of-plane Hall coefficients is rather small. Raman scattering spectra indicate that the E$_{2g}$-phonon frequency radically hardens with increasing the carbon-content, suggesting the weakening of electron-phonon coupling. Another striking C-effect is the increases of the second critical fields in both in-plane and out-of-plane directions, accompanied by a reduction in the anisotropy ratio. The possible changes in the electronic state and the origin of T$_c$-suppression by C-substitution are discussed.
The effect of electron correlation (EC) on the electronic structure in MgB$_2$, AlB$_2$ and ZrB$_2$, is studied by examining the partial density of states (PDOS) of B-2$psigma$ and $ppi$ orbitals using the polarization dependence of x-ray emission and absorption spectra. The discrepancies between observed and calculated PDOSs cannot be attributed to EC effects. The present results suggest that the EC effect is less than the experimental error ($sim$ 0.2 eV), which indirectly supports a scenario that electron-phonon interaction plays an essential role in the occurrence of superconductivity.
We investigate the influence of carbon-ion irradiation on the superconducting critical properties of MgB$_2$ thin films. MgB$_2$ films of two thicknesses viz. 400 nm (MB400nm) and 800 nm (MB800nm) were irradiated by 350 keV C ions having a wide range of fluence, 1 x 10$^{13}$ - 1 x 10$^{15}$ C atoms/cm$^2$. The mean projected range ($R_p$) of 350 keV C ions in MgB$_2$ is 560 nm, thus the energetic C ions will pass through the MB400nm, whereas the ions will remain into the MB800nm. The superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$), upper critical field ($H_{c2}$), $c$-axis lattice parameter, and corrected residual resistivity ($rho_{corr}$) of both the films showed similar trends with the variation of fluence. However, a disparate behavior in the superconducting phase transition was observed in the MB800nm when the fluence was larger than 1 x 10$^{14}$ C atoms/cm$^2$ because of the different Tcs between the irradiated and non-irradiated parts of the film. Interestingly, the superconducting critical properties, such as $T_c$, $H_{c2}$, and $J_c$, of the irradiated MgB$_2$ films, as well as the lattice parameter, were almost restored to those in the pristine state after a thermal annealing procedure. These results demonstrate that the atomic lattice distortion induced by C-ion irradiation is the main reason for the change in the superconducting properties of MgB$_2$ films.
We report a detailed study of the electronic and structural properties of the 39K superconductor mgbtwo and of several related systems of the same family, namely mgalbtwo, bebtwo, casitwo and cabesi. Our calculations, which include zone-center phonon frequencies and transport properties, are performed within the local density approximation to the density functional theory, using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) and the norm-conserving pseudopotential methods. Our results indicate essentially three-dimensional properties for these compounds; however, strongly two-dimensional $sigma$-bonding bands contribute significantly at the Fermi level. Similarities and differences between mgbtwo and bebtwo (whose superconducting properties have not been yet investigated) are analyzed in detail. Our calculations for mgalbtwo show that metal substitution cannot be fully described in a rigid band model. casitwo is studied as a function of pressure, and Be substitution in the Si planes leads to a stable compound similar in many aspects to diborides.
The DC magnetization and AC complex magnetic susceptibilities were measured for MgB2 single crystals, unsubstituted and carbon substituted with the composition of Mg(B_0.94C_0.06)2. The measurements were performed in AC and DC magnetic fields oriented parallel to the c-axis of the crystals. From the DC magnetization loops and the AC susceptibility measurements, critical current densities (Jc) were derived as a function of temperature and the DC and AC magnetic fields. Results show that the substitution with carbon decreases Jc at low magnetic fields, opposite to the well known effect of an increase of Jc at higher fields. AC magnetic losses were derived from the AC susceptibility data as a function of amplitude and the DC bias magnetic field. The AC losses were determined for temperatures of 0.6 and 0.7 of the transition temperature Tc, so close to the boiling points of LH2 and LNe, potential cooling media for magnesium diboride based composites. The results are analyzed and discussed in the context of the critical state model.
We report the observation of superconducting vortices in pure and lightly Al doped MgB$_2$ single crystals. Low field experiments allow for the estimation of the London penetration depth, lambda ~ 1900 $AA$ for T$sim$6 K. Experiments in higher fields (e.g. 200 Oe) clearly show a triangular vortex lattice in both real space (13 $mu$m by 13 $mu$m Bitter decoration image of over 1000 vortices) and reciprocal space.