Intertype superconductivity evoked by the interplay of disorder and multiple bands

Abstract

Nonmagnetic impurity scattering is known to shift up the Ginzburg−Landau parameter \kappa of a superconductor. In this case, when the system is initially in type I, it can change its magnetic response, crossing the intertype domain with \kappa \sim 1 between the two standard superconductivity types and arriving at type II. In the present work we demonstrate that the impact of disorder can be much more profound in the presence of the multiband structure of the charge carrier states. In particular, when the band diffusivities differ from each other, the intertype domain tends to expand significantly, including points with \kappa \gg 1 that belong to deep type-II in conventional single-band superconductors. Our finding sheds light on the nontrivial disorder effect and significantly complements earlier results on the enlargement of the intertype domain in clean multiband superconductors.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

superconductivity / disorder / intertype superconductivity / two-band model

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Declarations

The authors declare that they have no competing interests and there are no conflicts.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Basic Research Program of the HSE University used to obtain the extended Ginzburg−Landau theory for strongly disordered superconductors. A.A.Sh. and A.V.V. thank the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (Project FSMG-2023-0014) and the Russian Science Foundation (Grant No. 23-7230004) for the support that helped to perform investigations of the intertype domain phase diagram.

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