American Institute of Physics, Applied Physics Letters, 12(99), p. 122507
DOI: 10.1063/1.3643055
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Although 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of Nb3Sn as the first high field superconductor, real understanding of its upper critical field behavior {μ}0Hc2 is incomplete. Here we show surprising {μ}0Hc2 data on highly homogeneous bulk samples examined both by small-current, transport and by volumetric-averaging specific heat and the reversible magnetization techniques, which exhibit identical upper critical field {μ}0Hc2(0.3 K) ~ 29{±} 0.2 T with or without undergoing the cubic to tetragonal transition, a result in strong contrast to widely used multiple-source data compilations that show a strong depression of {μ}0Hc2(0K) from 29 T to 21.4 T in the tetragonal state.