Signature of high Tc around 25K in higher quality heavily boron-doped diamond

Diamond has outstanding physical properties: the hardest known material, a wide band gap, the highest thermal conductivity, and a very high Debye temperature. In 2004, Ekimov et al. discovered that heavily boron-doped (B-doped) diamond becomes a superconductor around 4 K. Our group successfully controlled the boron concentration and synthesized homoepitaxially grown superconducting diamond films by a CVD method. By CVD method, we found that superconductivity appears when the boron concentration (nB) exceeds a metal-insulator transition concentration of 3.0x10^20 cm^-3 and its Tczero increases up to 7.4 K with increasing nB. We additionally elucidated that the holes formed at the valence band are responsible for the metallic states leading to superconductivity. The calculations predicted that the hole doping into the valence band induces strong attractive interaction and a rapid increase in Tc with increasing boron concentration. According to the calculations, if substitutional doped boron could be arranged periodically or the degree of disorder is reduced, a Tc of approximately 100 K could be achieved via minimal percent doping. In this work, we have successfully observed zero resistivity above 10 K and an onset of resistivity reduction at 25.2 K in heavily B-doped diamond film. However, the effective carrier concentration is similar to that of superconducting diamond with a lower Tc. We found that the carrier has a longer mean free path and lifetime than previously reported, indicating that this highest Tc diamond has better crystallinity compared to that of other superconducting diamond films. In addition, the susceptibility shows a small transition above 20 K in the high quality diamond, suggesting a signature of superconductivity above 20 K. These results strongly suggest that heavier carrier doped defect-free crystalline diamond could give rise to high Tc diamond.

Electrodeposition as a new route to synthesize superconducting FeSe

We have successfully synthesized FeSe films by the electrochemical deposition in the electrolyte containing FeCl_{2}cdot4H_{2}O, SeO_{2} and Na_{2}SO_{4}. The composition ratio of Fe and Se was controlled by the synthesis voltage and pH value. The FeSe film with the composition ratio of Fe : Se = 1 : 1 is fabricated at a voltage of -0.9 V and pH 2.1 in our electrochemical deposition. This sample has a highly crystalline tetragonal FeSe structure and exhibits a superconducting transition at 8.1 K, comparable to FeSe synthesized by other methods.

One-step synthesis of KxFe2-ySe2 single crystals for high critical current density

We have established a simple process that allows for the one-step synthesis of KxFe2-ySe2 single crystals, which exhibit high critical current density Jc. The post annealing and quenching technique has improved the homogeneity of as-grown crystals, resulting in full shielding of the external magnetic field. The quenched crystals show a superconducting transition at Tconset = 32.9 K and Tczero = 32.1 K. The upper critical fields mu_{0}Hc2(0) for H//ab and H//c are estimated to be ~206 and ~50 T, respectively. The critical current densities Jc for H//ab and H//c reach as high as 1.0times10^{5} and 3.4times10^{4} A/cm2 at 5 K. Furthermore, Jc exhibits a high field performance and a significantly weak temperature dependence up to 5 T, suggesting strong pinning. These results demonstrate that KxFe2-ySe2 would be a promising candidate material for practical applications.

Electronic Structure of Superconducting FeSe Studied by High-Resolution Photoemission Spectroscopy

We have performed soft x-ray and ultrahigh-resolution laser-excited photoemission measurements on tetragonal FeSe, which was recently identified as a superconductor. Energy dependent study of valence band is compared to band structure calculations and yields a reasonable assignment of partial densities of states. However, the sharp peak near the Fermi level slightly deviates from the calculated energy position, giving rise to the necessity of self-energy correction. We have also performed ultrahigh-resolution laser photoemission experiment on FeSe and observed the suppression of intensity around the Fermi level upon cooling.

Electronic Structure of Noncentrosymmetric Superconductor Li$_2$(Pd$_x$Pt$_{1-x}$3)B Studied by Photoemission Spectroscopy

We have performed x-ray photoemission spectroscopy on the system of noncentrosymmetric superconductor, Li$_2$(Pd$_x$Pt$_{1-x}$3)B. For Li$_2$Pt$_3$B, we found 2 major peaks with 2 other weak components, and the band calculations were in agreement with the observation. The assignment of valence band features using the calculated partial density of states determined that Pt 5d and B 2p contribute to the density of states at the Fermi level. The effect of antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling on the band structure might have been probed, and the analysis on the effect of Pt incorporation into the system indicates the smooth evolution of electronic structures. We presented the measurements of core levels (Pd 3d, Pt 4f, and B 1s) and discussed the chemical bonding states and electronic structures from them.