Superconductivity in the intermetallic compound Zr5Al4

Z. Sobczak; M. J. Winiarski; W. Xie; R. J. Cava; T. Klimczuk

doi:10.1209/0295-5075/127/37005

All issues

Volume 127 / No 3 (August 2019)

EPL, 127 3 (2019) 37005

Abstract

Issue		EPL Volume 127, Number 3, August 2019


Article Number		37005
Number of page(s)		6
Section		Condensed Matter: Electronic Structure, Electrical, Magnetic and Optical Properties
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/127/37005
Published online		16 September 2019

EPL, 127 (2019) 37005

Superconductivity in the intermetallic compound Zr₅Al₄

Z. Sobczak¹^(a), M. J. Winiarski¹, W. Xie², R. J. Cava³ and T. Klimczuk¹^(b)

¹ Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics, Gdansk University of Technology - Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland
² Department of Chemistry, Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge, LA, 70803 USA
³ Department of Chemistry, Princeton University - Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

^(a) zuzanna.sobczak@pg.edu.pl
^(b) tomasz.klimczuk@pg.edu.pl

Received: 30 July 2019
Accepted: 22 August 2019

Abstract

Polycrystalline Zr₅Al₄ was synthesized using the arc-melting method. Powder X-ray diffraction confirms the previously reported crystal structure of the Ti₅Ga₄-type ( $P6_{3}/\textit{mcm}$ ) with lattice parameters: $a = 8.4312(6)\ \text{\AA}$ , and $c = 5.7752(8)\ \text{\AA}$ . Electrical resistivity and low-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate that Zr₅Al₄ exhibits superconducting behavior below 2 K. The normalized heat capacity jump at $T_{\mathrm{c}} = 1.82\ \text{K}$ , $\Delta C/\gamma T_{\mathrm{c}} = 1.50$ , confirms the bulk superconductivity. The Sommerfeld coefficient $\gamma = 28.5\ \text{mJ~mol}^{-1}\text{~K}^{-2}$ and the Debye temperature $\Theta_{\mathrm{D}} = 320\ \text{K}$ were obtained by fitting the low-temperature heat capacity data. The electron-phonon coupling strength $\lambda_{\text{el-ph}} = 0.49$ and estimated upper critical field $\mu_{0}H_{\mathrm{c2}}(0) = 1.09\ \text{T}$ (dirty limit) suggest that Zr₅Al₄ is a weakly coupled type-II superconductor. First-principles calculations show the presence of a van Hove singularity near the Fermi energy.

PACS: 71.20.Lp – Intermetallic compounds / 74.25.-q – Properties of superconductors / 74.20.Pq – Electronic structure calculations

© EPLA, 2019

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