No Arabic abstract
We present a pressure study of the electrical resistivity, AC magnetic susceptibility and powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) of the newly discovered BiS$_2$-based superconductor EuBiS$_2$F. At ambient pressure, EuBiS$_2$F shows an anomaly in the resistivity at around $T_0approx 280$ K and a superconducting transition at $T_capprox 0.3$ K. Upon applying hydrostatic pressure, there is little change in $T_0$ but the amplitude of the resistive anomaly is suppressed, whereas there is a dramatic enhancement of $T_c$ from 0.3 K to about 8.6 K at a critical pressure of $p_c$ $approx{1.4}$ GPa. XRD measurements confirm that this enhancement of $T_c$ coincides with a structural phase transition from a tetragonal phase ($P4/nmm$) to a monoclinic phase ($P2_1$/m), which is similar to that observed in isostructural LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_2$. Our results suggest the presence of two different superconducting phases with distinct crystal structures in EuBiS$_2$F, which may be a general property of this family of BiS$_2$-based superconductors.
We report measurements of ac magnetic susceptibility $chi_{ac}$ and de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) oscillations in KFe$_2$As$_2$ under high pressure up to 24.7 kbar. The pressure dependence of the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ changes from negative to positive across $P_c sim 18$ kbar as previously reported. The ratio of the upper critical field to $T_c$, i.e, $B_{c2} / T_c$, is enhanced above $P_c$, and the shape of $chi_{ac}$ vs field curves qualitatively changes across $P_c$. DHvA oscillations smoothly evolve across $P_c$ and indicate no drastic change in the Fermi surface up to 24.7 kbar. Three dimensionality increases with pressure, while effective masses show decreasing trends. We suggest a crossover from a nodal to a full-gap $s$ wave as a possible explanation.
As the simplest iron-based superconductor, FeSe forms a tetragonal structure with transition temperature Tc ~ 8 K. With assistance of pressure, or other techniques, Tc can be greatly enhanced, even to above liquid nitrogen temperature. The newly discovered superconducting tetragonal FeS (Tc ~ 4.5 K), a sulfide counterpart of FeSe, promotes us on its high pressure investigation. The transport and structure evolution of FeS with pressure have been studied. A rapid suppression of Tc and vanishing of superconductivity at 4.0 GPa are observed, followed by a second superconducting dome with a 30% enhancement in maximum Tc. An onsite tetragonal to hexagonal phase transition occurs around 7.0 GPa, followed by a broad pressure range of phase coexistence. The residual deformed tetragonal phase is considered as the source of second superconducting dome. The observation of two superconducting domes in iron-based superconductors poses great challenges for understanding their pairing mechanism.
Superconductivity (SC) and charge-density wave (CDW) are two contrasting yet relevant collective electronic states which have received sustained interest for decades. Here we report that, in a layered europium bismuth sulfofluoride, EuBiS$_2$F, a CDW-like transition occurs at 280 K, below which SC emerges at 0.3 K, without any extrinsic doping. The Eu ions were found to exhibit an anomalously temperature-independent mixed valence of about +2.2, associated with the formation of CDW. The mixed valence of Eu gives rise to self electron doping into the conduction bands mainly consisting of the in-plane Bi-6$p$ states, which in turn brings about the CDW and SC. In particular, the electronic specific-heat coefficient is enhanced by ~ 50 times, owing to the significant hybridizations between Eu-4$f$ and Bi-6$p$ electrons, as verified by band-structure calculations. Thus, EuBiS$_2$F manifests itself as an unprecedented material that simultaneously accommodates SC, CDW and $f$-electron valence instability.
We have measured the temperature dependence of resistivity in single-crystalline CeNiGe$_{3}$ under hydrostatic pressure in order to establish the characteristic pressure-temperature phase diagram. The transition temperature to AFM-I phase $T_{rm N1}$ = 5.5 K at ambient pressure initially increases with increasing pressure and has a maximum at $sim$ 3.0 GPa. Above 2.3 GPa, a clear zero-resistivity is observed (SC-I phase) and this superconducting (SC) state coexists with AFM-I phase. The SC-I phase suddenly disappears at 3.7 GPa simultaneously with the appearance of an additional kink anomaly corresponding to the phase transition to AFM-II phase. The AFM-II phase is continuously suppressed with further increasing pressure and disappears at $sim$ 6.5 GPa. In the narrow range near the critical pressure, an SC phase reappears (SC-II phase). A large initial slope of upper critical field $mu_0H_{rm c2}$ and non-Fermi liquid behavior indicate that the SC-II phase is mediated by antiferromagnetic fluctuations. On the other hand, the robust coexistence of the SC-I phase and AFM-I phase is unusual on the contrary to superconductivity near a quantum critical point on most of heavy-fermion compounds.
The effect of hydrostatic pressure and partial Na substitution on the normal-state properties and the superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$) of K$_{1-x}$Na$_x$Fe$_2$As$_2$ single crystals were investigated. It was found that a partial Na substitution leads to a deviation from the standard $T^2$ Fermi-liquid behavior in the temperature dependence of the normal-state resistivity. It was demonstrated that non-Fermi liquid like behavior of the resistivity for K$_{1-x}$Na$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ and some KFe$_2$As$_2$ samples can be explained by disorder effect in the multiband system with rather different quasiparticle effective masses. Concerning the superconducting state our data support the presence of a shallow minimum around 2 GPa in the pressure dependence of $T_c$ for stoichiometric KFe$_2$As$_2$. The analysis of $T_c$ in the K$_{1-x}$Na$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ at pressures below 1.5 GPa showed, that the reduction of $T_c$ with Na substitution follows the Abrikosov-Gorkov law with the critical temperature $T_{c0}$ of the clean system (without pair-breaking) which linearly depends on the pressure. Our observations, also, suggest that $T_c$ of K$_{1-x}$Na$_x$Fe$_2$As$_2$ is nearly independent of the lattice compression produced by the Na substitution. Further, we theoretically analyzed the behavior of the band structure under pressure within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). A qualitative agreement between the calculated and the recently in de Haas-van Alphen experiments [T. Terashima et al., Phys.Rev.B89, 134520(2014)] measured pressure dependencies of the Fermi-surface cross-sections has been found. These calculations, also, indicate that the observed minimum around 2~GPa in the pressure dependence of $T_c$ may occur without a change of the pairing symmetry.