Upper critical fields of chromium-rhenium alloys

Abstract

Alloys Cr_1−x Re _x in theirbcc α phase withx up to 0.31 have been studied through measurements of the upper critical magnetic fields, electrical resistivity and thermoelectric power. For this alloy system itinerant electron antiferromagnetism has recently been postulated to coexist with superconductivity. The critical field curvesB _c2(T) measured down to 0.06 K may be adequately described by the theroetical results obtained by Werthamer et al. and by Maki for “normal” dirty superconductors. Hence there is no indication of magnetic order in these data. The influence of spin orbit scattering is found to increase with the Re concentration. The sign and temperature variation of the thermoelectric power measured up to 300 K gives evidence of a drastic change of the electronic structure of the alloys with increasing Re concentration.