We report the synthesis of a single-phase sample of the superconducting crystalline approximant Au64.0Ge22.0Yb14.0 and present a structure model refined by Rietveld analysis for X-ray diffraction data.
We report the emergence of bulk superconductivity in Au64.0Ge22.0Yb14.0 and Au63.5Ge20.5Yb16.0 below 0.68 and 0.36 K, respectively. This is the first observation of superconductivity in Tsai-type crystalline approximants of quasicrystals. The Tsai-ty
pe cluster center is occupied by Au and Ge ions in the former approximant, and by an Yb ion in the latter. For magnetism, the latter system shows a larger magnetization than the former. To explain this observation, we propose a model that the cluster-center Yb ion is magnetic. The relationship between the magnetism and the superconductivity is also discussed.
Quantum criticality has been considered to be specific to crystalline materials such as heavy fermions. Very recently, however, the Tsai-type quasicrystal Au51Al34Yb15 has been reported to show unusual quantum critical behavior. To obtain a deeper un
derstanding of this new material, we have searched for other Tsai-type cluster materials. Here, we report that the metal alloys Au44Ga41Yb15 and Ag47Ga38Yb15 are members of the 1/1 approximant to the Tsai-type quasicrystal and that both possess no localized magnetic moment. We suggest that the Au-Al-Yb system is located near the border of the divalent and trivalent states of the Yb ion; we also discuss a possible origin of the disappearance of magnetism, associated with the valence change, by the substitution of the constituent elements.
