Peifei Yu | Searcharxiv

arXiv2023

Extremely strong coupling s-wave superconductivity in the medium-entropy alloy TiHfNbTa

Here we report a TiHfNbTa bulk medium-entropy alloy (MEA) superconductor crystallized in the body-centered cubic structure, which is synthesized by an arc melting method. Superconducting properties of the TiHfNbTa are studied by employing magnetic susceptibility, resistivity, and specific heat measurements. Experimental results show a bulk superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of around 6.75 K. The lower and upper crit-ical fields for TiHfNbTa are 45.8 mT and 10.46 T, respectively. First-principles calculations show that the d electron of Ti, Hf, Nb, and Ta is the main contribution near the Fermi level. Our results indicate that the superconductivity is a conven-tional s-wave type with extremely strong coupling. The extremely strong coupling behavior in the s-wave type TiHfNbTa MEA superconductor is unusual because it generally happens in cuprates, pnictides, and other unconventional superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2023

Discovery of the high-entropy carbide ceramic topological superconductor candidate (Ti0.2Zr0.2Nb0.2Hf0.2Ta0.2)C

High-entropy ceramics (HECs) are solid solutions of inorganic compounds with one or more Wyckoff sites shared by equal or near-equal atomic ratios of multi-principal elements. Material design and property tailoring possibilities emerge from this new class of materials. Here, we report the discovery of superconductivity around 2.35 K and topological properties in the (Ti0.2Zr0.2Nb0.2Hf0.2Ta0.2)C high-entropy carbide ceramic (HECC), which has not been observed before in any of the investigated HECC. Density functional theory calculations showed that six type-II Dirac points exist in (Ti0.2Zr0.2Nb0.2Hf0.2Ta0.2)C, which mainly contributed from the t2g orbitals of transition metals and the p orbitals of C. Due to the stability of the structure, we also observed robust superconductivity under pressure in this HEC superconductor. This study expands the physical properties of HECs, which may become a new material platform for superconductivity research, especially for studying the coupling between superconductivity and topological physics.

cond-mat.supr-con↗