Superheating Field in Superconductors with Nanostructured Surfaces

Authors

W. P. M. R. Pathirana, Virginia Military Institute
A. Gurevich, Old Dominion UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

DOI

10.3389/femat.2023.1246016

Publication Title

Frontiers in Electronic Materials

Volume

3

Pages

1246016 (1-10)

Abstract

We report calculations of a dc superheating field H_sh in superconductors with nanostructured surfaces. Numerical simulations of the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) equations were performed for a superconductor with an inhomogeneous impurity concentration, a thin superconducting layer on top of another superconductor, and superconductor-insulator-superconductor (S-I-S) multilayers.The superheating field was calculated taking into account the instability of the Meissner state with a nonzero wavelength along the surface, which is essential for realistic values of the GL parameter κ. Simulations were done for the materials parameters of Nb and Nb₃Sn at different values of κ and the mean free paths. We show that the impurity concentration profile at the surface and thicknesses of S-I-S multilayers can be optimized to enhance H_sh above the bulk superheating fields of both Nb and Nb₃Sn. For example, a S-I-S structure with 90 nm thick Nb₃Sn layer on Nb can boost the superheating field up to ≈ 500 mT, while protecting the SRF cavity from dendritic thermomagnetic avalanches caused by local penetration of vortices.

Rights

© 2023 Pathirana and Gurevich.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original authors and the copyright owners are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Data Availability

Article states: "The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author."

Original Publication Citation

Pathirana, W. P., & Gurevich, A. (2023). Superheating field in superconductors with nanostructured surfaces. Frontiers in Electronic Materials, 3, 1-10, Article 1246016. https://doi.org/10.3389/femat.2023.1246016

ORCID

0000-0003-0759-8941 (Gurevich)

Repository Citation

Pathirana, W. P. M. R. and Gurevich, A., "Superheating Field in Superconductors with Nanostructured Surfaces" (2023). Physics Faculty Publications. 803.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/physics_fac_pubs/803