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arXiv · 1709.01844

Superconductor-insulator transition in fcc-GeSb2Te4 at elevated pressures

Bar Hen·Samar Layek·Moshe Goldstein·Victor Shelukhin·Mark Shulman·Michael Karpovski·Eran Greenberg·Eran Sterer·Yoram Dagan·Gregory Kh. Rozenberg·Alexander Palevski
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Abstract

We show that polycrystalline GeSb2Te4 in the fcc phase (f-GST), which is an insulator at low temperature at ambient pressure, becomes a superconductor at elevated pressures. Our study of the superconductor to insulator transition versus pressure at low temperatures reveals a second order quantum phase transition with linear scaling (critical exponent close to unity) of the transition temperature with the pressure above the critical zero-temperature pressure. In addition, we demonstrate that at higher pressures the f-GST goes through a structural phase transition via amorphization to bcc GST (b-GST), which also become superconducting. We also find that the pressure regime where an inhomogeneous mixture of amorphous and b-GST exists, there is an anomalous peak in magnetoresistance, and suggest an explanation for this anomaly.

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Bar Hen, Samar Layek, Moshe Goldstein, Victor Shelukhin, Mark Shulman, Michael Karpovski, Eran Greenberg, Eran Sterer, Yoram Dagan, Gregory Kh. Rozenberg, Alexander Palevski. 2017-09-06. Superconductor-insulator transition in fcc-GeSb2Te4 at elevated pressures. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.97.024513

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