Reduction of the superconducting gap of ultrathin Pb islands grown on Si(111).
The energy gap Delta of superconducting Pb islands grown on Si(111) was probed in situ between 5 and 60 monolayers by low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Delta was found to decrease from its bulk value as a function of inverse island thickness. Corresponding T_{c} values, estimated using bulk gap-to-T_{c} ratio, are in quantitative agreement with ex situ magnetic susceptibility measurements, however, in strong contrast to previous scanning probe results. Layer-dependent ab initio density functional calculations for freestanding Pb films show that the electron-phonon coupling constant, determining T_{c}, decreases with diminishing film thickness.
Brun
Christophe
C
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Institut de Physique de la Matière Condensée, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Hong
I-Po
IP
Patthey
François
F
Sklyadneva
I Yu
IY
Heid
R
R
Echenique
P M
PM
Bohnen
K P
KP
Chulkov
E V
EV
Schneider
Wolf-Dieter
WD