The interphase surface energy in some pure and impure superconductors

Abstract

A new method has been developed for obtaining relative values of the surface energy parameter, Δ, in superconductors. It involves the measurement of the resistance of thin films subjected to a transverse magnetic field. The method has been applied to tin, indium and aluminium and to dilute alloys of the first two. The principal new results are that Δ is 1⋅48 times larger in indium than in tin and that the addition of impurity to either metal lowers Δ without changing the nature of its temperature dependence. These conclusions are compared with current theories of the interphase surface energy. An attempt has been made to deduce the absolute magnitude of Δ, which requires a detailed analysis of the way in which the last traces of the superconducting phase are eliminated from the film by the action of the magnetic field. The analysis is necessarily over-simplified but it does give a figure for Δ in pure tin which is reasonably consistent with the previous estimates of Faber and Sharvin.