Pressure-induced Superconductivity in the Three-component Fermion Topological Semimetal Molybdenum Phosphide

Abstract

Topological semimetal, a novel state of quantum matter hosting exotic emergent quantum phenomena dictated by the non-trivial band topology, has emerged as a new frontier in condensed-matter physics. Very recently, a coexistence of triply degenerate points of band crossing and Weyl points near the Fermi level was theoretically predicted and immediately experimentally verified in single crystalline molybdenum phosphide (MoP). Here we show in this material the high-pressure electronic transport and synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We report the emergence of pressure-induced superconductivity in MoP with a critical temperature Tc of about 2 K at 27.6 GPa, rising to 3.7 K at the highest pressure of 95.0 GPa studied. No structural phase transitions is detected up to 60.6 GPa from the XRD. Meanwhile, the Weyl points and triply degenerate points topologically protected by the crystal symmetry are retained at high pressure as revealed by our DFT calculations. The coexistence of three-component fermion and superconductivity in heavily pressurized MoP offers an excellent platform to study the interplay between topological phase of matter and superconductivity.

27 pages, 10 figures, 1 table

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• Exploring Topological Superconductivity in Topological Materials
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• Electronic states of pseudospin-1 fermions in dice lattice ribbons
• High-Pressure Crystal Growth, Superconducting Properties, and Electronic Band Structure of Nb2P5
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• Strong electron-phonon coupling in 3D tungsten nitride and coexistence of intrinsic superconductivity and topological nodal line in its 2D limit
• A comprehensive study of the physical properties of Nb2P5 via ab-initio technique
• Pressure-induced Superconductivity in dual-topological semimetal Pt2HgSe3
• Pressure-induced superconductivity in LaP2 with graphenelike phosphorus layer
• Nodeless superconductivity and topological nodal states in molybdenum carbide
• Surface and bulk superconductivity at ambient pressure in the Weyl semimetal TaP
• Pressure induced electronic band evolution and observation of superconductivity in the Dirac semimetal ZrTe5
• Superconductivity in the pressure-amorphized topological insulator CrP${}_4$