Surface Superconductivity of Dirty Two-Band Superconductors: Applications to ${\rm MgB}_2$

Abstract

The minimal magnetic field $H_{c2}$ destroying superconductivity in the {\it bulk} of a superconductor is smaller than the magnetic field $H_{c3}$ needed to destroy {\it surface} superconductivity if the surface of the superconductor coincides with one of the crystallographic planes and is parallel to the external magnetic field. While for a dirty single-band superconductor the ratio of $H_{c3}$ to $H_{c2}$ is a universal temperature-independent constant 1.6946, for dirty two-band superconductors this is not the case. I show that in the latter case the interaction of the two bands leads to a novel scenario with the ratio $H_{c3}/H_{c2}$ varying with temperature and taking values larger and smaller than 1.6946. The results are applied to ${\rm MgB}_2$ and are in agreement with recent experiments [A. Rydh {\it et al.}, cond-mat/0307445].