Microscopic derivation of superconductor-insulator boundary conditions for Ginzburg-Landau theory revisited. Enhanced superconductivity at boundaries with and without magnetic field


Abstract in English

Using the standard Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory, we revise microscopic derivation of the superconductor-insulator boundary conditions for the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) model. We obtain a negative contribution to free energy in the form of surface integral. Boundary conditions for the conventional superconductor have the form $textbf{n} cdot abla psi = text{const} psi$. These are shown to follow from considering the order parameter reflected in the boundary. The boundary conditions are also derived for more general GL models with higher-order derivatives and pair-density-wave states. It shows that the boundary states with higher critical temperature and the boundary gap enhancement, found recently in BCS theory, are also present in microscopically-derived GL theory. In the case of an applied external field, we show that the third critical magnetic-field value $H_{c3}$ is higher than what follows from the de Gennes boundary conditions and is also significant in type-I regime.

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