Weakly Coupled Type-II Superconductivity in a Laves compound ZrRe2

Yingpeng Yu; Zhaolong Liu; Qi Li; Zhaoxu Chen; Yulong Wang; Munan Hao; Yaling Yang; Chunsheng Gong; Long Chen; Zhenkai Xie; Kaiyao Zhou; Huifen Ren; Xu Chen; Shifeng Jin

arXiv · 2407.10268

Weakly Coupled Type-II Superconductivity in a Laves compound ZrRe2

Yingpeng Yu·Zhaolong Liu·Qi Li·Zhaoxu Chen·Yulong Wang·Munan Hao·Yaling Yang·Chunsheng Gong·Long Chen·Zhenkai Xie·Kaiyao Zhou·Huifen Ren·Xu Chen·Shifeng Jin

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Abstract

We present a comprehensive investigation of the superconducting properties of ZrRe2, a Re-based hexagonal Laves compounds. ZrRe2 crystallizes in a C14-type structure (space group P63/mmc), with cell parameters a=b=5.2682(5) and c=8.63045 . Resistivity and magnetic susceptibility data both suggest that ZrRe2 exhibits a sharp superconducting transition above 6.1 K. The measured lower and upper critical fields are 6.27 mT and 12.77 T, respectively, with a large upper critical field that approached the Pauli limit.Measurements of the heat capacity confirm the presence of bulk superconductivity, with a normalized specific heat change of 1.24 and an electron-phonon strength of 0.69 . DFT calculations revealed that the band structure of ZrRe2 is intricate and without van-Hove singularity. The observed large specific heat jump, combined with the electron-phonon strength , suggests that ZrRe2 is a weakly coupled type II superconductor.

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Yingpeng Yu, Zhaolong Liu, Qi Li, Zhaoxu Chen, Yulong Wang, Munan Hao, Yaling Yang, Chunsheng Gong, Long Chen, Zhenkai Xie, Kaiyao Zhou, Huifen Ren, Xu Chen, Shifeng Jin. 2024-07-14. Weakly Coupled Type-II Superconductivity in a Laves compound ZrRe2. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.10268

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