Influence of hydrostatic pressure on superconducting properties of niobium thin film

We have studied superconducting properties of niobium thin films under hydrostatic pressures up to 3 GPa. The films with thickness of 100 nm were prepared in the high vacuum DC magnetron sputtering system (with critical temperature TC = 8.95 K at ambient pressure). The produced high quality films have been characterized using electrical resistivity and magnetization measurements, X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscope imaging. We have observed increase of TC with increasing value of applied pressure (dTC/dp = 73 mK/GPa) up to 3 GPa. This observation is different to pressure effect observed on bulk sample of Nb. In this paper we are discussing the origin of this discrepancy.