Superconducting energy gap in MgCNi3 single crystals Original Research Article

Even though MgCNi3 contains large molar volume of magnetic Ni atoms it clearly shows superconductivity. The origin of superconductivity in this material has not yet been clarified. There is a lot of discrepancy in experimental results and physical interpretation where even unconventional pairing or a two-band model have been proposed for the system. All that is based on results obtained on polycrystalline samples. Here we present the first point-contact spectroscopy and ac-calorimetry measurements on the MgCNi3 single crystals of very good quality. Measurements have been performed in the temperature range from 1.5 to 10 K and in magnetic fields up to 8 T. The temperature dependence of the energy gap of the system is presented and compared to the BCS model.