Three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators (TIs) are new forms of quantum matter that are characterized by their insulating bulk state and exotic metallic surface state, which hosts helical Dirac fermions1-2. Very recently, BiTeCl, one of the pola
r semiconductors, has been discovered by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to be the first strong inversion asymmetric topological insulator (SIATI). In contrast to the previously discovered 3D TIs with inversion symmetry, the SIATI are expected to exhibit novel topological phenomena, including crystalline-surface-dependent topological surface states, intrinsic topological p-n junctions, and pyroelectric and topological magneto-electric effects3. Here, we report the first transport evidence for the robust topological surface state in the SIATI BiTeCl via observation of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations, which exhibit the 2D nature of the Fermi surface and pi Berry phase. The n = 1 Landau quantization of the topological surface state is observed at B . 12 T without gating, and the Fermi level is only 58.8 meV above the Dirac point, which gives rise to small effective mass, 0.055me, and quite large mobility, 4490 cm2s-1. Our findings will pave the way for future transport exploration of other new topological phenomena and potential applications for strong inversion asymmetric topological insulators.
We measured the initial M-H curves for a sample of the newly discovered superconductor NdFeAsO0.82Fe0.18, which had a critical temperature, Tc, of 51 K, and was fabricated at the high pressure of 6 GPa. The lower critical field, Hc1, was extracted fr
om the deviation point of the Meissner linearity in the M-H curves, which show linear temperature dependence in the low temperature region down to 5 K. The Hc1(T) indicates no s-wave superconductivity, but rather an unconventional superconductivity with a nodal gap structure. Furthermore, the linearity of Hc1 at low temperature does not hold at high temperature, but shows other characteristics, indicating that this superconductor might have multi-gap features. Based on the low temperature nodal gap structure, we estimate that the maximum gap magnitude delta 0 = (1.6+- 0.2) kBTc.
The flux pinning mechanism of NdO0.82F0.18FeAs superconductor made under high pressure, with a critical temperature, Tc, of 51 K, has been investigated in detail in this work. The field dependence of the magnetization and the temperature dependence o
f the magnetoresistivity were measured in fields up to 13 T. The field dependence of the critical current density, Jc(B), was analyzed within the collective pinning model. A crossover field, Bsb, from the single vortex to the small vortex bundle pinning regime was observed. The temperature dependence of Bsb(T) is in good agreement with the delta-l pinning mechanism, i.e., pinning associated with fluctuations in the charge-carrier mean free path, l. Analysis of resistive transition broadening revealed that thermally activated flux flow is found to be responsible for the resistivity contribution in the vicinity of Tc. The activation energy U0/kB is 2000 K in low fields and scales as B (-1/3) over a wide field range. Our results indicate that the NdO0.82F0.18FeAs has stronger intrinsic pinning than Bi-2212 and also stronger than MgB2 for H > 8 T.
