Interfacial phase transitions in twinning-plane superconductors

Abstract

Within the framework of Ginzburg-Landau theory we study the rich variety of interfacial phase transitions in twinning-plane superconductors. We show that the phase behaviour strongly depends on the transparency of the twinning plane for electrons measured by means of the coupling parameter \alpha_TP. By analyzing the solutions of the Ginzburg-Landau equations in the limit of perfectly transparent twinning planes, we predict a first-order interface delocalization transition for all type-I materials. We further perform a detailed study of the other limit in which the twinning plane is opaque. The phase diagram proves to be very rich and fundamentally different from the transparent case, recovering many of the results for a system with an external surface. In particular both first-order and critical delocalization transitions are found to be possible, accompanied by a first-order depinning transition. We provide a comparison with experimental results and discuss the relevance of our findings for type-II materials.