No Arabic abstract
The field-reentrant (field-reinforced) superconductivity on ferromagnetic superconductors is one of the most interesting topics in unconventional superconductivity. The enhancement of effective mass and the induced ferromagnetic fluctuations play key roles for reentrant superconductivity. However, the associated change of the Fermi surface, which is often observed at (pseudo-) metamagnetic transition, can also be a key ingredient. In order to study the Fermi surface instability, we performed Hall effect measurements in the ferromagnetic superconductor URhGe. The Hall effect of URhGe is well explained by two contributions, namely by the normal Hall effect and by the large anomalous Hall effect due to skew scattering. The large change in the Hall coefficient is observed at low fields between the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic states for H // c-axis (easy-magnetization axis) in the orthorhombic structure, indicating that the Fermi surface is reconstructed in the ferromagnetic state below the Curie temperature (T_Curie=9.5K). At low temperatures (T << T_Curie), when the field is applied along the b-axis, the reentrant superconductivity was observed in both the Hall resistivity and the magnetoresistance below 0.4K. Above 0.4K, a large jump with the first-order nature was detected in the Hall resistivity at a spin-reorientation field H_R ~ 12.5T, demonstrating that the marked change of the Fermi surface occurs between the ferromagnetic state and the polarized state above H_R. The results can be understood by the Lifshitz-type transition, induced by the magnetic field or by the change of the effective magnetic field.
We present different transport measurements up to fields of 29~T in the recently discovered heavy-fermion superconductor UTe$_{2}$ with magnetic field $H$ applied along the easy magnetization a-axis of the body-centered orthorhombic structure. The thermoelectric power varies linearly with temperature above the superconducting transition, $T_{SC}= 1.5$ K, indicating that superconductivity develops in a Fermi liquid regime. As a function of field the thermolelectric power shows successive anomalies which are attributed to field-induced Fermi surface instabilities. These Fermi-surface instabilities appear at critical values of the magnetic polarization. Remarkably, the lowest magnetic field instability for $Hparallel a$ occurs for the same critical value of the magnetization (0.4 $mu_B$) than the first order metamagnetic transition at 35~T for field applied along the $b$-axis. The estimated number of charge carriers at low temperature reveals a metallic ground state distinct from LDA calculations indicating that strong electronic correlations are a major issue in this compound.
We review our recent studies on ferromagnetic superconductors, UGe2, URhGe and UCoGe, where the spin-triplet state with the so-called equal spin pairing is realized. We focus on experimental results of URhGe and UCoGe in which the superconductivity occurs already at ambient pressure. The huge upper critical field Hc2 on UCoGe for the field along the hard magnetization axis (b-axis) is confirmed by the AC susceptibility measurements by the fine tuning of field angle. Contrary to the huge Hc2 along the hard-magnetization axis, Hc2 along the easy-magnetization axis (c-axis) is relatively small in value. However, the initial slope of Hc2, namely dHc2/dT (H -> 0) both in UCoGe and in URhGe indicates the large value, which can be explained by the magnetic domain effect detected in the magnetization measurements. The specific heat measurements using a high quality single crystal of UCoGe demonstrate the bulk superconductivity, which is extended under magnetic field for the field along c-axis.
We introduce a simple but powerful zero temperature Stoner model to explain the unusual phase diagram of the ferromagnetic superconductor, UGe2. Triplet superconductivity is driven in the ferromagnetic phase by tuning the majority spin Fermi level through one of two peaks in the paramagnetic density of states (DOS). Each peak is associated with a metamagnetic jump in magnetisation. The twin peak DOS may be derived from a tight-binding, quasi-one-dimensional bandstructure, inspired by previous bandstructure calculations.
We review our recent work on magnetic properties of graphite and related carbon materials. The results demonstrate that a structural disorder, topological defects, as well as adsorbed foreign atoms can be responsible for the occurrence of both ferromagnetic and superconducting patches in graphitic structures.
The discovery in 2000 that the ferromagnetic (FM) compound UGe2 (T_Curie = 52 K at ambient pressure) becomes superconducting under a pressure of P = 1.1 GPa until it enters the paramagnetic (PM) phase above Pc = 1.6 GPa was a surprise. Successive searches for new materials (URhGe and UCoGe) led to the discovery of the coexistence of superconductivity (SC) and ferromagnetism at ambient pressure. Furthermore in UCoGe, it was found that SC survives in the PM regime from P_c = 1.1 to 4 GPa. Focus has been on low-temperature experiments under extreme conditions of magnetic field (H), pressure, and uniaxial stress. In UGe2, strong interplay exists between Fermi surface (FS) reconstructions in the cascade of different FM and PM ground states and their magnetic fluctuations. Similar phenomena occur in URhGe and UCoGe but, at first glance, the SC seems to be driven by the FM fluctuations. In UCoGe, a longitudinal field scan leads to a drastic decrease in the FM fluctuations, while a transverse field scan leads to suppression of the Curie temperature, T_Curie; the consequence is a boost in FM fluctuations, leading to a reinforcement of SC. The singularity in URhGe is the weakness of the anisotropy between c- and b-axes; the most noteworthy feature is the detection of reentrant SC near H_R. All the experimental results give evidence that the SC in these three materials originates from the FM fluctuations, which are amplitude modes of magnetic excitations in the FM state. Spin-triplet pairing has been anticipated in the FM superconductors and was actually observed by Knight-shift measurements in the SC state of UCoGe. Their fascinating (p, T, H) phase diagrams are now well established. Discussion is presented on how different theoretical approaches can describe the various phenomena discovered by experimentalists.