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.