Pressure-induced superconductivity was recently discovered in the binary helimagnet CrAs. We report the results of measurements of nuclear quadrupole resonance for CrAs under pressure. In the vicinity of the critical pressure P_c between the helimagn
etic (HM) and paramagnetic (PM) phases, a phase separation is observed. The large internal field remaining in the phase-separated HM state indicates that the HM phase disappears through a strong first-order transition. This indicates the absence of a quantum critical point in CrAs; however, the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T_1 reveals that substantial magnetic fluctuations are present in the PM state. The absence of a coherence effect in 1/T_1 in the superconducting state provides evidence that CrAs is the first Cr-based unconventional superconductor.
We report resistivity measurements of the helimagnet CrAs under pressures. The helimagnetic transition with T_N ~ 265 K at ambient pressure is completely suppressed above a critical pressure of P_c ~ 0.7 GPa, and superconductivity is observed at ~2.2
K for zero resistance, which exists in a wide pressure range extending beyond 3 GPa. Both the upper critical field H_{c2} and the coefficient A in the resistivity increase toward P_c, suggesting that the superconductivity of CrAs is mediated by electronic correlations enhanced in the vicinity of the helimagnetic phase.
