Pressure induced superconductivity in Bi single crystals

Abstract

Measurements on resistivity and magnetic susceptibility have been carried out for Bi single crystals under pressures up to 10.5GPa. The temperature dependent resistivity shows a semimetallic behavior at ambient and low pressures (below about 1.6GPa). This is followed by an upturn of resistivity in low temperature region when the pressure is increased, which is explained as a semiconductor behavior. This feature gradually gets enhanced up to a pressure of about 2.52GPa. Then a non-monotonic temperature dependent resistivity appears upon further increasing pressure, which is accompanied by a strong suppression to the low temperature resistivity upturn. Simultaneously, a superconducting transition occurs at about 3.92K under a pressure of about 2.63GPa. With further increasing pressure, a second superconducting transition emerges at about 7K under about 2.8GPa. For these two superconducting states, the superconductivity induced magnetic screening volumes are quite large. As the pressure further increased to 8.1GPa, we observe the third superconducting transition at about 8.2K. The resistivity measurements under magnetic field allow us to determine the upper critical fields ${\mu }_0{H}_{c2}$ of the superconducting phases. The upper critical field for the phase with $T_c=3.92$K is extremely low. Based on the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg (WHH) theory, the estimated value of ${\mu }_0{H}_{c2}$ for this phase is about 0.103T. While the upper critical field for the phase with $T_c$=7K is very high with a value of about 4.56T. Finally, we present a pressure dependent phase diagram of Bi single crystals. Our results reveal the interesting and rich physics in bismuth single crystals under high pressure.

5 pages 6 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Superconductivity in the vicinity of antiferromagnetic order in CrAs
• Metal-Insulator-Like Behavior in Semimetallic Bismuth and Graphite
• Pressure induced superconductivity on the border of magnetic order in MnP
• Infrared Conductivity of Elemental Bismuth under Pressure: Evidence for an Avoided Lifshitz-Type Semimetal-Semiconductor Transition

Cited by in corpus (4)

• On the superconducting nature of the Bi-II phase of elemental Bismuth
• Pressure effect on the topologically nontrivial electronic state and transport of lutecium monobismuthide
• First-principles study on the electron-phonon coupling and magnetoresistance of LaBi under pressure
• Superconductivity in the solid phases of Bi. Is Bi-IV a superconductor?