No Arabic abstract
The temperature ($T$) and magnetic field ($H$) dependence of the magnetic penetration depth, $lambda(T,H)$, in Ca(Al$_{0.5}$Si$_{0.5}$)$_2$ exhibits significant deviation from that expected for conventional BCS superconductors. In particular, it is inferred from a field dependence of $lambda(H)$ ($propto H$) at 2.0 K that the quasiparticle excitation is strongly enhanced by the Doppler shift. This suggests that the superconducting order parameter in Ca(Al$_{0.5}$Si$_{0.5}$)$_2$ is characterized by a small energy scale $Delta_S/k_Ble 2$ K originating either from anisotropy or multi-gap structure.
Indium substitution turns the topological crystalline insulator (TCI) Pb$_{0.5}$Sn$_{0.5}$Te into a possible topological superconductor. To investigate the effect of the indium concentration on the crystal structure and superconducting properties of (Pb$_{0.5}$Sn$_{0.5}$)$_{1-x}$In$_{x}$Te, we have grown high-quality single crystals using a modified floating-zone method, and have performed systematic studies for indium content in the range $0leq xleq 0.35$. We find that the single crystals retain the rock salt structure up to the solubility limit of indium ($xsim0.30$). Experimental dependences of the superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$) and the upper critical magnetic field ($H_{c2}$) on the indium content $x$ have been measured. The maximum $T_c$ is determined to be 4.7 K at $x=0.30$, with $mu_0H_{c2}(T=0)approx 5$ T.
We report density functional calculations of the electronic structure, Fermi surface, phonon spectrum and electron--phonon coupling for newly discovered superconductor LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiSe$_{2}$. Significant similarity between LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_{2}$ and LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiSe$_{2}$ is found, i.e. there is a strong Fermi surface nesting at ($pi $,$pi $,0), which results in unstable phonon branches. Combining the frozen phonon total energy calculations and an anharmonic oscillator model, we find that the quantum fluctuation prevents the appearance of static long--range order. The calculation shows that LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiSe$_{2}$ is highly anisotropic, and same as LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_{2}$, this compound is also a conventional electron-phonon coupling induced superconductor.
The response of vortex state to the magnetic field in Nb3Sn is probed using muon spin rotation and small-angle neutron scattering. A transformation of vortex structure between hexagonal and squared lattice is observed over a relatively low field range of 2-3 Tesla. The gradual increase of the magnetic penetration depth with increasing field provides microscopic evidence for anisotropic (or multi-gapped) s-wave pairing suggested by the Raman scattering experiment. This result renders need for careful examination on the difference of electronic properties between Nb3Sn and V3Si.
We use neutron scattering, to study magnetic excitations in crystals near the ideal superconducting composition of FeTe$_{0.5}$Se$_{0.5}$. Two types of excitations are found, a resonance at (0.5, 0.5, 0) and incommensurate fluctuations on either side of this position. We show that the two sets of magnetic excitations behave differently with doping, with the resonance being fixed in position while the incommensurate excitations move as the doping is changed. These unusual results show that a common behavior of the low energy magnetic excitations is not necessary for pairing in these materials.
We use electronic Raman scattering to study the low-energy excitations in BaFe$_2$(As$_{0.5}$P$_{0.5}$)$_2$ ($T_c approx 16$ K) samples. In addition to a superconducting pair breaking peak (2$Delta=6.7$ meV) in the A$_{1g}$ channel with a linear tail towards zero energy, suggesting a nodal gap structure, we detect spectral features associated to Pomeranchuk oscillations in the A$_{1g}$, B$_{1g}$ and B$_{2g}$ channels. We argue that the small Fermi energy of the system is an essential condition for these Pomeranchuk oscillations to be underdamped. The Pomeranchuk oscillations have the same frequencies in the B$_{1g}$ and B$_{2g}$ channels, which we explain by the mixing of these symmetries resulting from the removal of the $sigma_v$ and $sigma_v$ symmetry planes due to a large As/P disorder. Interestingly, we show that the temperature at which the peaks corresponding to the Pomeranchuk oscillations get underdamped is consistent with the non-Fermi liquid to Femi liquid crossover determined by transport, suggesting that the Pomeranchuk instability plays an important role in the low-energy physics of the Fe-based superconductors.