Metal-insulator-like transition, superconducting dome and topological electronic structure in Ga-doped Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$

Superconductivity frequently appears by doping compounds that show a collective phase transition. So far, however, this has not been observed in topological materials. Here we report the discovery of superconductivity induced by Ga doping in orthorhombic Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$, which undergoes a second-order metal-insulator-like transition at $sim$58 K and is predicted to have a nontrivial band topology. It is found that the substitution of Ga for Ge leads to hole doping in Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7-x}$Ga$_{x}$. As a consequence, the phase transition is gradually suppressed and disappears above $x$ = 0.2. At this $x$ value, superconductivity emerges and $T_{rm c}$ exhibits a dome-like doping dependence with a maximum value of 3.37 K at $x$ = 0.25. First-principles calculations suggest that the phase transition in Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$ is associated with an electronic instability driven by Fermi surface nesting and the nontrival band topology is preserved after Ga doping. Our results indicate that Ga-doped Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$ provides a rare opportunity to study the interplay between superconductivity and competing electronic states in a topologically nontrivial system.

Metamagnetic transitions and anomalous magnetoresistance in EuAg$_4$As$_2$ single crystal

In this paper, the magnetic and transport properties were systematically studied for EuAg$_4$As$_2$ single crystals, crystallizing in a centrosymmetric trigonal CaCu$_4$P$_2$ type structure. It was confirmed that two magnetic transitions occur at $textit{T}$$_{N1}$ = 10 K and $textit{T}$$_{N2}$ = 15 K, respectively. With the increasing field, the two transitions are noticeably driven to lower temperature. At low temperatures, applying a magnetic field in the $textit{ab}$ plane induces two successive metamagnetic transitions. For both $textit{H}$ $parallel$ $textit{ab}$ and $textit{H}$ $parallel$ $textit{c}$, EuAg$_4$As$_2$ shows a positive, unexpected large magnetoresistance (up to 202%) at low fields below 10 K, and a large negative magnetoresistance (up to -78%) at high fields/intermediate temperatures. Such anomalous field dependence of magnetoresistance may have potential application in the future magnetic sensors. Finally, the magnetic phase diagrams of EuAg$_{4}$As$_{2}$ were constructed for both $textit{H}$ $parallel$ $textit{ab}$ and $textit{H}$ $parallel$ $textit{c}$.