No Arabic abstract
Measurements of the basal-plane resistivity rho_a(T,H) performed on highly oriented pyrolitic graphite, with magnetic field H parallel to the c-axis in the temperature interval 2 - 300 K and fields up to 8 T, provide evidence for the occurrence of both field - induced and zero-field superconducting instabilities. Additionally, magnetization M(T,H) measurements suggest the occurrence of Fermi surface instabilities which compete with the superconducting correlations.
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.
Two-particle spectroscopy with correlated electron pairs is used to establish the causal link between the secondary electron spectrum, the $(pi+sigma)-$plasmon peak and the unoccupied band structure of highly oriented pyrolitic graphite. The plasmon spectrum is resolved with respect to the involved interband transitions and clearly exhibits final state effects, in particular due to the energy gap between the interlayer resonances along the $Gamma$A-direction. The corresponding final state effects can also be identified in the secondary electron spectrum. Interpretation of the results is performed on the basis of density functional theory and tight binding calculations. Excitation of the plasmon perturbs the symmetry of the system and leads to hybridisation of the interlayer resonances with atom-like $sigma^*$ bands along the $Gamma A$-direction. These hybrid states have a high density of states as well as sufficient mobility along the graphite $c$-axis leading to the sharp $sim$3 eV resonance in the spectrum of emitted secondary electrons reported throughout the literature.
We have identified ferromagnetic- and superconducting-like magnetization hysteresis loops in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite samples below and above room temperature. We also found that both behaviors are very sensitive to low-temperature -- as compared to the sample synthesis temperature -- heat treatment. The possible contribution of magnetic impurities and why these do not appear to be the reason for the observed phenomena is discussed.
We introduce a spinful variant of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model with an effective time reversal symmetry, which can be solved exactly in the limit of a large number $N$ of degrees of freedom. At low temperature, its phase diagram includes a compressible non-Fermi liquid and a strongly-correlated spin singlet superconductor that shows a tunable enhancement of the gap ratio predicted by BCS theory. These two phases are separated by a first-order transition, in the vicinity of which a gapless superconducting phase, characterized by a non-zero magnetization, is stabilized upon applying a Zeeman field. We study equilibrium transport properties of such superconductors using a lattice construction, and propose a physical platform based on topological insulator flakes where they may arise from repulsive electronic interactions.
We report on the magnetic field (0T$ le B le 9$T) dependence of the longitudinal thermal conductivity $kappa(T,B)$ of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite in the temperature range 5 K $le Tle$ 20 K for fields parallel to the $c-$axis. We show that $kappa(T,B)$ shows large oscillations in the high-field region (B > 2 T) where clear signs of the Quantum-Hall effect are observed in the Hall resistance. With the measured longitudinal electrical resistivity we show that the Wiedemann-Franz law is violated in the high-field regime.