Evidence for Cooper Pair Diffraction on the Vortex Lattice of Superconducting Niobium

Abstract

We investigated the Abrikosov vortex lattice (VL) of a pure Niobium single crystal with the muon spin rotation (μSR) technique. Analysis of the μSR data in the framework of the BCS-Gor'kov theory allowed us to determine microscopic parameters and the limitations of the theory. With decreasing temperature the field variation around the vortex cores deviates substantially from the predictions of the Ginzburg-Landau theory and adopts a pronounced conical shape. This is evidence of partial diffraction of Cooper pairs on the VL predicted by Delrieu for clean superconductors.

9 pages, 6 figures

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• Comparison of different methods for analyzing $\mu$SR line shapes in the vortex state of type-II superconductors
• Muon spin rotation studies of electronic excitations and magnetism in the vortex cores of superconductors
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Thermodynamic parameters of single- or multi-band superconductors derived from self-field critical currents
• Universal scaling of the self-field critical current in superconductors: from sub-nanometre to millimetre size
• Depth-resolved measurements of the Meissner screening profile in surface-treated Nb
• Magnetic field distribution and characteristic fields of the vortex lattice for a clean superconducting niobium sample in an external field applied along a three-fold axis
• Implantation studies of low-energy positive muons in niobium thin films