Abstract
The superconducting transition temperature(TC) in nanostructured Pb decreases from 7.24 to 6.4 K as the particle size isreduced from 65 to 7 nm, below which superconductivity is lost ratherabruptly. In contrast, there is a large enhancement in the upper critical field(HC2) in the same size regime. We explore the origin of the unusual robustness ofTC over such a large particle size range in nanostructured Pb by measuring the temperaturedependence of the superconducting energy gap in planar tunnel junctions ofAl/Al2O3/nano-Pb. We show that below 22 nm, the electron–phonon coupling strengthincreases monotonically with decreasing particle size, and almost exactlycompensates for the quantum size effect, which is expected to suppressTC.
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