We report the superconductivity in layered oxychalcogenide La2O2Bi3AgS6 compound. The La2O2Bi3AgS6 compound has been reported recently by our group, which has a tetragonal structure with the space group P4/nmm. The crystal structure of La2O2Bi3AgS6 can be regarded as alternate stacks of LaOBiS2-type layer and rock-salt-type (Bi,Ag)S layer. We measured low-temperature electrical resistivity and observed superconductivity at 0.5 K. The observation of superconductivity in the La2O2Bi3AgS6 should provide us with the successful strategy for developing new superconducting phases by the insertion of a rock-salt-type chalcogenide layer into the van der Waals gap of BiS2-based layered compound like LaOBiS2.
We have synthesized a new layered oxychalcogenide La2O2Bi3AgS6. From synchrotron X-ray diffraction and Rietveld refinement, the crystal structure of La2O2Bi3AgS6 was refined using a model of the P4/nmm space group with a = 4.0644(1) {AA} and c = 19.412(1) {AA}, which is similar to the related compound LaOBiPbS3, while the interlayer bonds (M2-S1 bonds) are apparently shorter in La2O2Bi3AgS6. The tunneling electron microscopy (TEM) image confirmed the lattice constant derived from Rietveld refinement (c ~ 20 {AA}). The electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient suggested that the electronic states of La2O2Bi3AgS6 are more metallic than those of LaOBiS2 and LaOBiPbS3. The insertion of a rock-salt-type chalcogenide into the van der Waals gap of BiS2-based layered compounds, such as LaOBiS2, will be a useful strategy for designing new layered functional materials in the layered chalcogenide family.
Plasmonic excitations behave fundamentally different in layered materials in comparison to bulk systems. They form gapless modes, which in turn couple at low energies to the electrons. Thereby they can strongly influence superconducting instabilities. Here, we show how these excitations can be controlled from the outside via changes in the dielectric environment or in the doping level, which allows for external tuning of the superconducting transition temperature. By solving the gap equation for an effective system, we find that the plasmonic influence can both strongly enhance or reduce the transition temperature, depending on the details of the plasmon-phonon interplay. We formulate simple experimental guidelines to find plasmon- induced elevated transition temperatures in layered materials.
Bulk superconductivity was discovered in BaRh2P2 (Tc = 1.0 K) and BaIr2P2 (Tc = 2.1 K), which are isostructural to (Ba,K)Fe2As2, indicative of the appearance of superconductivity over a wide variety of layered transition metal pnictides. The electronic specific heat coefficient gamma in the normal state, 9.75 and 6.86 mJ/mol K2 for BaRh2P2 and BaIr2P2 respectively, indicate that the electronic density of states of these two compounds are moderately large but smaller than those of Fe pnictide superconductors. The Wilson ratio close to 1 indeed implies the absence of strong electron correlations and magnetic fluctuations unlike Fe pnictides.
The physical properties of CsNi$_{2}$Se$_{2}$ were characterized by electrical resistivity, magnetization and specific heat measurements. We found that the stoichiometric CsNi$_{2}$Se$_{2}$ compound is a superconductor with a transition temperature textit{T$_{c}$}=2.7K. A large Sommerfeld coefficient $gamma$$_{n}$ ($sim$77.90 mJ/mol$cdot$K$^{-2}$), was obtained from the normal state electronic specific heat. However, the Kadowaki-Woods ratio of CsNi$_{2}$Se$_{2}$ was estimated to be about 0.041$times$10$^{-5}$ $muOmega$$cdot$cm(mol$cdot$K/mJ)$^{2}$, indicating the absence of strong electron-electron correlations in this compound. In the superconducting state, we found that the zero-field electronic specific heat data, $C_{es}(T)$ (0.5K $leq$ T $<$ 2.6K), can be well fitted with a two-gap BCS model. The comparison with the results of the density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggested that the large $gamma$$_{n}$ in the nickel-selenide superconductors may be related to the large Density of States (DOS) at the fermi surface.
Superconductivity in low-dimensional compounds has long attracted much interest. Here we report superconductivity in a low-dimensional ternary telluride Ta4Pd3Te16 in which the repeating layers contain edge-sharing octahedrally-coordinated PdTe2 chains along the crystallographic b axis. Measurements of electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and specific heat on the Ta4Pd3Te16 crystals, grown via a self-flux method, consistently demonstrate bulk superconductivity at 4.6 K. Further analyses of the data indicate significant electron-electron interaction, which allows electronic Cooper pairing in the present system.