One of the common features of unconventional, magnetically mediated superconductivity as found in the heavy-fermions, high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) cuprates, and iron pnictides superconductors is that the superconductivity emerges in the vici
nity of long-range antiferromagnetically ordered state.[1] In addition to doping charge carriers, the application of external physical pressure has been taken as an effective and clean approach to induce the unconventional superconductivity near a magnetic quantum critical point (QCP).[2,3] Superconductivity has been observed in a majority of 3d transition-metal compounds,[4-9] except for the Cr- and Mn-based compounds in the sense that the low-lying states near Fermi level are dominated by their 3d electrons. Herein, we report on the discovery of superconductivity on the verge of antiferromagnetic order in CrAs via the application of external high pressure. Bulk superconductivity with Tc ~ 2 K emerges at the critical pressure Pc ~ 8 kbar, where the first-order antiferromagnetic transition at TN = 265 K under ambient pressure is completely suppressed. Abnormal normal-state properties associated with a magnetic QCP have been observed nearby Pc. The close proximity of superconductivity to an antiferromagnetic order suggests an unconventional pairing mechanism for the superconducting state of CrAs. The present finding opens a new avenue for searching novel superconductors in the Cr and other transitional-metal based systems.
Golden SmS is a paramagnetic, mixed-valence system with a pseudogap. With increasing pressure across a critical pressure Pc, the system undergoes a discontinuous transition into a metallic, anti-ferromagnetically ordered state. By using a combination
of thermodynamic, transport, and magnetic measurements, we show that the pseudogap results from the formation of a local bound state with spin singlet. We further argue that the transition Pc is regarded as a transition from an insulating electron-hole gas to a Kondo metal, i.e., from a spatially bound state to a Kondo virtually bound state between 4f and conduction electrons.
We report results of 23Na and 75As nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments on a self-flux grown high-quality single crystal of stoichiometric NaFeAs. The NMR spectra revealed a tetragonal to twinned-orthorhombic structural phase transition at T_
O = 57 K and an antiferromagnetic (AF) transition at T_AF = 45 K. The divergent behavior of nuclear relaxation rate near T_AF shows significant anisotropy, indicating that the critical slowing down of stripe-type AF fluctuations are strongly anisotropic in spin space. The NMR spectra at low enough temperatures consist of sharp peaks showing a commensurate stripe AF order with a small moment sim 0.3 muB. However, the spectra just below T_AF exhibits highly asymmetric broadening pointing to an incommensurate modulation. The commensurate-incommensurate crossover in NaFeAs shows a certain similarity to the behavior of SrFe2As2 under high pressure.
We measured the thermal expansion of the valence fluctuating phase of SmS (golden SmS) to construct a pressure vs temperature phase diagram. The obtained phase diagram is characterized by three lines. One is a crossover line that divides the paramagn
etic phase into two regions. The other two lines correspond to a second-order Neel transition and a first-order Neel transition. The crossover line appears to emerge from a tricritical point that separates the first-order Neel transition from the second-order one. We argue that a valence jump occurs at the border of antiferromagnetism.
