Superconductivity in the Nb-rich Nb–Al alloys

Abstract

Nb-rich Nb–Al alloys were prepared by both sputtering and quenching from the liquid state. Lattice constants and superconducting transition temperatures were measured and compared for as-quenched and as-sputtered samples and also for the same samples after annealing. For the samples with between 75 and 80 at.% Nb, annealing produced nearly single-phased β-W alloys with the highest transition temperatures of 18.6 °K for quenched samples and 16.6 °K for sputtered samples.