Topological quantum phase transition and superconductivity induced by pressure in the bismuth tellurohalide BiTeI

Yanpeng Qi; Wujun Shi; Pavel G. Naumov; Nitesh Kumar; Raman Sankar; Walter Schnelle; Chandra Shekhar; F. C. Chou; Claudia Felser; Binghai Yan; Sergey A. Medvedev

doi:10.1002/adma.201605965

arXiv · 1610.05364

Topological quantum phase transition and superconductivity induced by pressure in the bismuth tellurohalide BiTeI

Yanpeng Qi·Wujun Shi·Pavel G. Naumov·Nitesh Kumar·Raman Sankar·Walter Schnelle·Chandra Shekhar·F. C. Chou·Claudia Felser·Binghai Yan·Sergey A. Medvedev

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Abstract

A pressure-induced topological quantum phase transition has been theoretically predicted for the semiconductor BiTeI with giant Rashba spin splitting. In this work, the evolution of the electrical transport properties in BiTeI and BiTeBr is investigated under high pressure. The pressure-dependent resistivity in a wide temperature range passes through a minimum at around 3 GPa, indicating the predicted transition in BiTeI. Superconductivity is observed in both BiTeI and BiTeBr while the resistivity at higher temperatures still exhibits semiconducting behavior. Theoretical calculations suggest that the superconductivity may develop from the multi-valley semiconductor phase. The superconducting transition temperature Tc increases with applied pressure and reaches a maximum value of 5.2 K at 23.5 GPa for BiTeI (4.8 K at 31.7 GPa for BiTeBr), followed by a slow decrease. Our results demonstrate that BiTeX (X = I, Br) compounds with non-trivial topology of electronic states display new ground states upon compression.

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Yanpeng Qi, Wujun Shi, Pavel G. Naumov, Nitesh Kumar, Raman Sankar, Walter Schnelle, Chandra Shekhar, F. C. Chou, Claudia Felser, Binghai Yan, Sergey A. Medvedev. 2016-10-17. Topological quantum phase transition and superconductivity induced by pressure in the bismuth tellurohalide BiTeI. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201605965

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