No Arabic abstract
We performed AC calorimetry and magnetoresistance measurements under pressure for H || a-axis (easy-magnetization axis) in the novel heavy-fermion superconductor UTe2. Thanks to the thermodynamic information, multiple superconducting phases have been revealed under pressure and magnetic field. The (H,T) phase diagram of superconductivity under pressure displays an abrupt increase of the upper critical field (Hc2) at low temperature and in the high field region, and a strong convex curvature of Hc2 at high temperature. This behavior of Hc2 and the multiple superconducting phases require a state for the superconducting order parameter more complex than a spin-triplet equal spin pairing. Above the superconducting critical pressure, Pc, we find strong indications that the possible magnetic order is closer to antiferromagnetism than to ferromagnetism.
We report the magnetoresistance in the novel spin-triplet superconductor UTe2 under pressure close to the critical pressure Pc, where the superconducting phase terminates, for field along the three a, b and c-axes in the orthorhombic structure. The superconducting phase for H // a-axis just below Pc shows a field-reentrant behavior due to the competition with the emergence of magnetic order at low fields. The upper critical field Hc2 for H // c-axis shows a quasi-vertical increase in the H-T phase diagram just below Pc, indicating that superconductivity is reinforced by the strong fluctuations which persist even at high fields above 20T. Increasing pressure leads to the disappearance of superconductivity at zero field with the emergence of magnetic order. Surprisingly, field-induced superconductivity is observed at high fields, where a spin-polarized state is realized due to the suppression of the magnetic ordered phases; the spin-polarized state is favorable for superconductivity, whereas the magnetic ordered phase at low field seems to be unfavorable. The huge Hc2 in the spin-polarized state seems to imply a spin-triplet state. Contrary to the a- and c-axes, no field-reinforcement of superconductivity occurs for magnetic field along the b-axis. We compare the results with the field-reentrant superconductivity above the metamagnetic field, Hm for the field direction tilted by about 30 deg. from b to c-axis at ambient pressure as well as the field-reentrant (-reinforced) superconductivity in ferromagnetic superconductors, URhGe and UCoGe.
We present a detailed analysis of the upper critical field for CeCoIn5 under high pressure. We show that, consistently with other measurements, this system shows a decoupling between maximum of the superconducting transition temperature Tc and maximum pairing strength. This puts forward CeCoIn5 as an important paradigm for this class of unconventional, strongly correlated superconductors.
Multiple superconducting order parameters are extremely rare. Here we show that a very small pressure can induce this phenomenon in the recently discovered heavy fermion superconductor UTe2. This nearly ferromagnetic system shows several intriguing phenomena, including an extraordinary reinforcement of superconductivity in very strong magnetic fields. We find that pressure can tune the system to a more correlated state and probable magnetic order. The superconducting critical temperature is strongly enhanced, reaching almost 3K, a new record for Ce- and U-based heavy fermion superconductors. Most spectacularly under pressure we find a transition within the superconducting state, putting UTe2 among the very rare systems having multiple superconducting phases. UTe2 under pressure is a treasure trove of several of the most fascinating phenomena in unconventional superconductivity and may well be a keystone in their understanding.
We grew single crystals of U6Co by the self-flux method and measured the magnetic susceptibility, resistivity, and specific heat. The magnetic susceptibility shows very small anisotropy and weak temperature dependence, indicating small spin-susceptibility. Superconductivity was clearly observed in the resistivity, susceptibility, and specific heat at Tc~2.3K. The upper critical field was remarkably large, 7.9 and 6.6T for H || [001] and [110], respectively, in the tetragonal structure, indicating that the ellipsoidal Fermi surface is slightly suppressed along the [001] direction according to the effective mass model. The specific heat shows a large jump at Tc with Delta C/gamma Tc = 1.58, and the field dependence of the specific heat at low temperatures shows an almost linear increase. These experimental results are well explained by the BCS model in the dirty limit condition. U6Co is most likely a conventional s-wave superconductor with a full superconducting gap.
Magnetoresistivity measurements with fine tuning of the field direction on high quality single crystals of the ferromagnetic superconductor UCoGe show anomalous anisotropy of the upper critical field H_c2. H_c2 for H // b-axis (H_c2^b) in the orthorhombic crystal structure is strongly enhanced with decreasing temperature with an S-shape and reaches nearly 20 T at 0 K. The temperature dependence of H_c2^a shows upward curvature with a low temperature value exceeding 30 T, while H_c2^c at 0 K is very small (~ 0.6 T). Contrary to conventional ferromagnets, the decrease of the Curie temperature with increasing field for H // b-axis marked by an enhancement of the effective mass of the conduction electrons appears to be the origin of the S-shaped H_c2^b curve. These results indicate that the field-induced ferromagnetic instability or magnetic quantum criticality reinforces superconductivity.