No Arabic abstract
Pd-intercalated ErTe$_3$ is studied as a model system to explore the effect of intertwined superconducting and charge density wave (CDW) orders. Despite the common wisdom that superconductivity emerges only when CDW is suppressed, we present data from STM and AC susceptibility measurements that show no direct competition between CDW order and superconductivity. Both coexist over most of the intercalation range, with uniform superconductivity over length scales that exceed the superconducting coherence length. This is despite persisting short-range CDW order and increased scattering from the Pd intercalation. While superconductivity is insensitive to local defects in either of the bi-directional CDWs, vestiges of the Fermi-level distortions are observed in the properties of the superconducting state.
Disorder is generically anticipated to suppress long range charge density wave (CDW) order. We report transport, thermodynamic, and scattering experiments on Pd$_x$ErTe$_3$, a model CDW system with disorder induced by intercalation. The pristine parent compound ($x=0$) shows two separate, mutually perpendicular, incommensurate unidirectional CDW phases setting in at 270 K and 165 K. Here we track the suppression of signatures corresponding to these two parent transitions as the Pd concentration increases. At the largest values of $x$, we observe complete suppression of long range CDW order in favor of superconductivity. We also report evidence from electron and x-ray diffraction which suggests a tendency toward short-range ordering along both wavevectors which persists even well above the crossover temperature. Pd$_x$ErTe$_3$ provides a promising model system for the study of the interrelation of charge order and superconductivity in the presence of quenched disorder.
We systematically investigated the superconducting properties and the interplay between charge-density-waves (CDW) and superconductivity in lithium-intercalated 2H-TaS2. By gradually increasing the lithium content x, the CDW formation temperature is continuously suppressed, and the onset temperature of superconductivity is increased with a maximum transition temperature Tc = 3.5 K for x = 0.096. The bulk nature of superconductivity is confirmed by a superconducting shielding fraction of the order of unity for this composition. The electronic contribution to the specific heat and Hall resistivity data demonstrate that the CDW weakens with lithium-intercalation, thereby indirectly increasing carrier density and boosting superconductivity. While the sign of the charge carriers in undoped 2H-TaS2 changes from electron-like to hole type near the CDW formation temperature around 75 K, the lithium intercalated LixTaS2 show predominantly hole-type carriers in the CDW phase even for very low lithium contents.
2$H$-TaSe$_2$ has been one of unique transition metal dichalcogenides exhibiting several phase transitions due to a delicate balance among competing electronic ground states. An unusual metallic state at high-$T$ is sequentially followed by an incommensurate charge density wave (ICDW) state at $approx$ 122 K and a commensurate charge density wave (CCDW) state at $approx$ 90 K, and superconductivity at $T_{rm{C}}sim$0.14 K. Upon systematic intercalation of Pd ions into TaSe$_2$, we find that CCDW order is destabilized more rapidly than ICDW to indicate a hidden quantum phase transition point at $x$$sim$0.09-0.10. Moreover, $T_{rm{C}}$ shows a dramatic enhancement up to 3.3 K at $x$ = 0.08, $sim$24 times of $T_{rm{C}}$ in 2$H$-TaSe$_2$, in proportional to the density of states $N(E_F)$. Investigations of upper critical fields $H_{c2}$ in single crystals reveal evidences of multiband superconductivity as temperature-dependent anisotropy factor $gamma_H$ = $H_{c2}^{ab}$/$H_{c2}^{c}$, quasi-linear increase of $H_{c2}^{c}(T)$, and an upward, positive-curvature in $H_{c2}^{ab}(T)$ near $T_{rm{C}}$. Furthermore, analysis of temperature-dependent electronic specific heat corroborates the presence of multiple superconducting gaps. Based on above findings and electronic phase diagram vs $x$, we propose that the increase of $N(E_F)$ and effective electron-phonon coupling in the vicinity of CDW quantum phase transition should be a key to the large enhancement of $T_{rm{C}}$ in Pd$_x$TaSe$_2$.
By measuring the temperature dependence of the resistance, we investigated the effect of Cu doping on superconductivity (SC) in Cu-doped TaSe$_3$ in which the charge density wave (CDW) transition is induced by Cu doping. We observed an emergence of a region where the SC transition temperature ($T_mathrm{C}$) decreased in samples with higher Cu concentrations and found that the region tended to expand with increasing Cu concentration. In addition, the temperature dependence of the upper critical field ($H_mathrm{C2}$) of Cu-doped TaSe$_3$ was found to differ from that of pure TaSe$_3$. Based on these experimental results and the fact that the SC of TaSe$_3$ is filamentary, we conclude that SC is suppressed locally by Cu doping and competes with the CDW in Cu-doped TaSe$_3$. The resistance anomaly due to the CDW transition was extremely small and the size of the anomaly was enhanced with increasing Cu concentration but the temperature at which the anomaly appeared hardly changed. This result of the anomaly and the local suppression of SC imply that the induced CDWs are short-range order in the vicinity of Cu atoms. We also discuss the effect of the pinning of CDWs on the relationship between SC and short-range order CDWs.
We provide optical reflectivity data collected over a broad spectral range and as a function of temperature on the ErTe$_3$ and HoTe$_3$ materials, which undergo two consecutive charge-density-wave (CDW) phase transitions at $T_{CDW1}$= 265 and 288 K and at $T_{CDW2}$= 157 and 110 K, respectively. We observe the temperature dependence of both the Drude component, due to the itinerant charge carriers, and the single-particle peak, ascribed to the charge-density-wave gap excitation. The CDW gap progressively opens while the metallic component gets narrow with decreasing temperature. An important fraction of the whole Fermi surface seems to be affected by the CDW phase transitions. It turns out that the temperature and the previously investigated pressure dependence of the most relevant CDW parameters share several common features and behaviors. Particularly, the order parameter of the CDW state is in general agreement with the predictions of the BCS theory.