First-principles approach to thin superconducting slabs and heterostructures
arXiv:1607.00528 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.94.140502
Abstract
We present a fully first-principles method for superconducting thin films. The layer dependent phonon spectrum is calculated to determine the layer dependence of the electron-phonon coupling for such systems, which is coupled to the Kohn-Sham-Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, and it is solved in a parameter free way. The theory is then applied to different surface facets of niobium slabs and to niobium-gold heterostructures. We investigate the dependence of the transition temperature on the thickness of the slabs and the inverse proximity effect observed in thin superconducting heterostructures.