The Meissner effect in high-temperature hydrogen-rich superconductors under high pressure

In the last few years, the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, of hydrogen-rich compounds has increased dramatically, and is now approaching room temperature. However, the pressures at which these materials are stable exceed one million atmospheres and limit the number of available experimental probes - superconductivity has been primarily identified based on electrical transport measurements. Here, we report definitive evidence of the Meissner effect – a key feature of superconductivity – in H3S and LaH10. Furthermore, we have determined characteristic superconducting parameters: a lower critical field Hc1 of ∼1.9 and ∼1.0 T, and a London penetration depth λL of ∼13 and ∼21 nm in Im-3m-H3S and Fm-3m-LaH10, respectively. These compounds have low values of the Ginzburg-Landau parameter κ ∼7–14 and belong to the group of “moderate” type II superconductors.

Robust Bulk Superconductivity by Giant Proximity Effect in Weyl Semimetal-superconducting NbP/NbSe2 Composites

We synthesize Weyl semimetal/superconductor NbP/NbSe2 composite and observe stable bulk superconductivity at Tc = 7.2 K, 6.9 K, and 6.8 K for NbSe2 crystal, NbP/NbSe2 (1:1), and NbP/NbSe2 (2:1) composites, respectively, despite large volume fraction of non-superconducting NbP phase. From the Ginzburg-Landau theory, the Hc2(0) is significantly enhanced in NbP/NbSe2 composites [22 T (1:1) and 18.5 T (2:1)] comparing with the pristine NbSe2 crystal (8 T). The bulk superconductivity in Weyl semimetal/superconductor composite cannot be simply described by the de Gennes-Meissner theory in a proximity effect. From the electrical transport, magnetization, and heat capacity measurement, we obtain various superconducting parameters. The superconducting properties indicate that the NbP/NbSe2 composite is far from the conventional BCS superconductivity. It suggests that the Weyl semimetal/superconductor composite can have giant proximity effect, resulting in the stable bulk superconductivity in a composite with sizable volume fraction of non-superconducting Weyl semimetals. The giant proximity effect in Weyl semimetal/superconductor interface can have a platform to investigate the proximity induced Weyl semimetallic superconducting states.

Fluctuation induced conductivity and pseudogap state studies of Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ superconductor added with ZnO nanoparticles

The major limitations of the Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ superconductor are weak flux pinning capability and weak inter-grains coupling that lead to a low critical current density and low critical magnetic field which impedes the suppleness of this material towards practical applications. The addition of nanoscales impurities can create artificial pining centers that may improve flux pinning capability and intergranular coupling. In this work, the influences of ZnO nanoparticles on the superconducting parameters and pseudogap properties of the Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ superconductor are investigated using fluctuation induced conductivity analyses. Results demonstrate that the ZnO nanoparticles addition improves the formation of the Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ phase significantly. Various superconducting parameters include coherence length along c-axis (ξc(0)), penetration depth (λpd(0)), Fermi velocity (vF), Fermi energy (EF), lower and upper critical magnetic fields (Bc1(0) and Bc2(0) respectively) and critical current density (Jc(0)), are estimated for samples with different amounts of ZnO nanoparticles. It is found that the values of the Bc1(0), Bc2(0), and Jc(0) are improved significantly in the 0.2 wt% ZnO added sample in comparison to the ZnO-free sample. The magnitude and temperature dependence of the pseudogap Δ*(T) is calculated using the local pairs model. The obtained values of Tpair, the temperature at which local pairs are transformed from strongly coupled bosons into the fluctuating Cooper pairs, increases as the added ZnO nanoparticles concentration enhances up to 0.2 wt%. Also, the estimated values for the superconducting gap at T = 0 K (Δ(0)) are decreased from about 26 meV in ZnO-free sample to about 22 meV in 0.2 wt% ZnO added sample and then increases for higher values of additive.