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We have measured the electronic specific heat of $Y_{0.8}Ca_{0.2}Ba_2Cu_3O_{7-delta}$ using a high-resolution differential technique from liquid helium temperature to room temperature in an applied magnetic field up to 13T. The field dependence of the electronic specific heat at low temperatures in the superconducting state behaves differently in the overdoped and underdoped regimes, varing as $sqrt{H}$ in the overdoped regime but as $H$ in the underdoped regime. An entropy loss is observed in the normal state in optimal and underdoped samples, which can be attributed to the opening of a normal state psuedogap. From the temperature and field dependences of the free energy, the temperature dependence of the upper critical field $H_{c2}$ is determined. For the overdoped sample ($x=0.79$), we find $H_{c2}$ to have a negative curvature.
We have investigated the field-angle variation of the specific heat C(H, phi, theta) of the heavy-fermion superconductor UPt3 at low temperatures T down to 50 mK, where phi and theta denote the azimuthal and polar angles of the magnetic field H, respectively. For T = 88 mK, C(H, theta=90) increases proportionally to H^{1/2} up to nearly the upper critical field Hc2, indicating the presence of line nodes. By contrast, C(H, theta=0) deviates upward from the H^{1/2} dependence for (H/Hc2)^{1/2} > 0.5. This behavior can be related to the suppression of Hc2 along the c direction, whose origin has not been resolved yet. Our data show that the unusual Hc2 limit becomes marked only when theta is smaller than 30. In order to explore the possible vertical line nodes in the gap structure, we measured the phi dependence of C in wide T and H ranges. However, we did not observe any in-plane angular oscillation of C within the accuracy of dC/C~0.5%. This result implies that field-induced excitations of the heavy quasiparticles occur isotropically with respect to phi, which is apparently contrary to the recent finding of a twofold thermal-conductivity oscillation.
We report the field-orientation dependent specific heat of the spin-triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4 under the magnetic field aligned parallel to the RuO2 planes with high accuracy. Below about 0.3 K, striking 4-fold oscillations of the density of states reflecting the superconducting gap structure have been resolved for the first time. We also obtained strong evidence of multi-band superconductivity and concluded that the superconducting gap in the active band, responsible for the superconducting instability, is modulated with a minimum along the [100] direction.
We have systematically studied the low-temperature specific heat of the BaFe$_{2-x}$Ni$_x$As$_2$ single crystals covering the whole superconducting dome. Using the nonsuperconducting heavily overdoped x = 0.3 sample as a reference for the phonon contribution to the specific heat, we find that the normal-state electronic specific heats in the superconducting samples may have a nonlinear temperature dependence, which challenges previous results in the electron-doped Ba-122 iron-based superconductors. A model based on the presence of ferromagnetic spin fluctuations may explain the data between x = 0.1 and x = 0.15, suggesting the important role of Fermi-surface topology in understanding the normal-state electronic states.
The low-temperature specific heat of a superconductor Mo3Sb7 with T_c = 2.25 (0.05) K has been measured in magnetic fields up to 5 T. In the normal state, the electronic specific heat coefficient gamma_n, and the Debye temperature Theta_D are found to be 34.5(2) mJ/molK^2 and 283(5) K, respectively. The enhanced gamma_n value is interpreted due to a narrow Mo-4d band pinned at the Fermi level. The electronic specific heat in the superconducting state can be analyzed in terms a phenomenological two BCS-like gap model with the gap widths 2Delta_1/k_BT_c = 4.0 and 2Delta_2/k_BT_c = 2.5, and relative weights of the mole electronic heat coefficients gamma_1/gamma_n = 0.7 and gamma_2/gamma_n = 0.3. Some characteristic thermodynamic parameters for the studied superconductor, like the specific heat jump at T_c, DeltaC_p(T_c)/gamma_nT_c, the electron-phonon coupling constant,lambda_eph, the upper H_c2 and thermodynamic critical H_c0 fields, the penetration depth, lambda, coherence length xi, and the Ginzburg-Landau parameter kappa are evaluated. The estimated values of parameters like 2Delta/k_BT_c, DeltaC_p(T_c)/gamma_nT_c, N(E_F), and lambda_eph suggest that Mo3Sb7 belongs to intermediate-coupling regime. The electronic band structure calculations indicate that the density of states near the Fermi level is formed mainly by the Mo-4d orbitals and there is no overlapping between the Mo- 4d and Sb-sp orbitals.
The specific heat $C(T)$ of new iron-based high-$T_c$ superconductor SmO$_{1-x}$F$_x$FeAs ($0 leq x leq 0.2$) was systematically studied. For undoped $x$ = 0 sample, a specific heat jump was observed at 130 K. This is attributed to the structural or spin-density-wave (SDW) transition, which also manifests on resistivity as a rapid drop. However, this jump disappears with slight F doping in $x$ = 0.05 sample, although the resistivity drop still exists. The specific heat $C/T$ shows clear anomaly near $T_c$ for $x$ = 0.15 and 0.20 superconducting samples. Such anomaly has been absent in LaO$_{1-x}$F$_x$FeAs. For the parent compound SmOFeAs, $C(T)$ shows a sharp peak at 4.6 K, and with electron doping in $x$ = 0.15 sample, this peak shifts to 3.7 K. It is interpreted that such a sharp peak results from the antiferromagnetic ordering of Sm$^{3+}$ ions in this system, which mimics the electron-doped high-$T_c$ cuprate Sm$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_{4-delta}$.