Antimony Doping Effect on the Superconducting Properties of SmFeAs(O,F)

Abstract

We report the synthesis and characterization of a series of antimony-doped SmFeAs1-xSbxO0.8F0.2 (x = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3) bulks to investigate the twin doping effects on the superconducting properties of SmFeAs(O,F) caused by fluorine (F) incorporation at O-site in SmO layer and antimony (Sb) substitution at As-site in the conducting layer (FeAs). Since the antimony (Sb) has a larger size than arsenic (As), the enhancement of lattice parameters has been confirmed by the XRD analysis. Microstructural analysis confirms that Sb-doping leads to a small improvement in the sample density and an increase in the inhomogeneity of the constituent elements, especially at higher Sb-doping levels. The parent compound SmFeAsO0.8F0.2 has shown the superconducting transition (Tc) at ~54 K, which is systematically reduced with the antimony doping contents (x). Our investigation indicates that the Sb-doped SmFeAs(O,F) phase at low levels is less prone to the multiphase formation than at high levels, which affects the inter- and intragranular behaviour originating from the microstructure nature of 1111 bulks. The critical current density (Jc) of the parent compound has almost the same value as previously reported, which is suppressed slowly with increased Sb-doping. It could be due to the reduced grain connections and the effective pinning centers. This study confirms that the superconducting FeAs layer doping with larger ions at arsenic sites does not support the superconducting properties of Sm1111, which is a distinct behavior from that of Sb-doped CeFeAs(O,F) and LaFeAs(O,F).