Search

Kagome materials exhibit many novel phenomena emerging from the interplay between lattice geometry, electronic structure, and topology. A prime example is the vanadium-based kagome materials AV3Sb5 (A = K, Rb, and Cs) with superconductivity and unconventional charge-density wave (CDW). More interestingly, the substitution of vanadium by chromium further introduces magnetism and enhances the correlation effect in CsCr3Sb5 which likewise exhibits superconductivity under pressure and competing density-wave state. Here we systematically investigate the electronic structure of CsCr3Sb5 using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (APRES) and ab-initio calculations. Overall, the measured electronic structure agrees with the theoretical calculation. Remarkably, Cr 3d orbitals exhibit incoherent electronic states and contribute to incipient flat bands close to the Fermi level. The electronic structure shows a minor change across the magnetic transition at 55 K, suggesting a weak interplay between the local magnetic moment and itinerant electrons. Furthermore, we reveal a drastic enhancement of the electron scattering rate across the magnetic transition, which is relevant to the semiconducting-like transport property of the system at high temperatures. Our results suggest that CsCr3Sb5 is a strongly correlated Hund's metal with incipient flat bands near the Fermi level, which provides an electronic basis for understanding its novel properties in comparison to the non-magnetic and weakly correlated AV3Sb5.

The interrelationship between flat bands and correlated phenomena such as unconventional superconductivity stands as an intriguing subject in condensed matter physics. Here, by first-principles calculations and random phase approximation analyses, we investigate the electronic structure, superconducting instability, as well as roles of the incipient flat bands in kagome superconductor CsCr$_3$Sb$_5$. Our calculations reveal strong antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations in CsCr$_3$Sb$_5$, which mediates two sets of spin-singlet superconducting orders with $s_{\pm}$- and ($d_{xy}$, $d_{x^2-y^2}$)-wave symmetries. Under the dominance of local Coulomb interactions, the unoccupied incipient flat bands are shown to be crucial for the momentum dependence of spin fluctuations and thus the superconductivity. Our further analyses unveil a sublattice-momentum-coupling-driven mechanism for this momentum-dependent enhancement of the fluctuations, which provides us a new perspective for future studies of geometrically frustrated systems.

We theoretically propose Ac$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$, La$_2$BaNi$_2$O$_6$F, and La$_2$SrNi$_2$O$_6$F compounds to be benchmark materials for bilayer nickelate superconductivity. The stable phase of Ac$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$ and La$_2$BaNi$_2$O$_6$F are found to be $I4/mmm$ without the lattice distortion caused by octahedra rotation at ambient pressure, where as the lattice distortion in La$_2$SrNi$_2$O$_6$F can be suppressed with relatively small external pressure of 4 GPa. The magnetism, electronic structure and spin susceptibilities of Ac$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$ are extremely close to those of La$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$ at 30 GPa. The ground state of La$_2$BaNi$_2$O$_6$F and La$_2$SrNi$_2$O$_6$F are antiferromagnetically coupled checkerboard bilayer with sizable magnetic moment on Ni. In addition, the inter-layer coupling $J_{\perp}$ between Ni-bilayers in La$_2$BaNi$_2$O$_6$F or La$_2$SrNi$_2$O$_6$F is only $\sim$ 1/10 of that in Ac$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$ or La$_3$Ni$_2$O$_7$ at 30 GPa. We argue that these compounds may serve as superconducting candidates at ambient pressure and can be employed to testify theoretical proposals for bilayer nickelate superconductivity.

Using first-principles density-functional calculations, we investigate the electronic structure and magnetism of the kagome superconductor CsCr$_3$Sb$_5$. At the ambient pressure, its ground state is found to be $4\times2$ altermagnetic spin-density-wave (SDW) pattern, with an averaged effective moment of $\sim$1.7$\mu_B$ per chromium atom. The magnetic long range order is coupled to the lattice structure, generating 4$a_0$ structural modulation. However, multiple competing SDW phases are present and energetically very close, suggesting strong magnetic fluctuation and frustration. The electronic states near the Fermi level are dominated by Cr-3d orbitals, and flat band or van Hove singularities are away from the Fermi level. When external pressure is applied, the energy differences between competing orders and the structural modulations are suppressed by external pressure. The magnetic fluctuation remains present and important at high pressure because the non-magnetic phase is unstable up to 30 GPa. In addition, a bonding state between Cr-3d$_{xz}$ and Sb$^{\mathrm{II}}$-p$_z$ quickly acquires dispersion and eventually becomes metallic around 5 GPa, leading to a Lifshitz transition. Our findings strongly support unconventional superconductivity in the CsCr$_3$Sb$_5$ compound above 5 GPa, and suggest crucial role of magnetic fluctuations in the pairing mechanism.

We investigated the coexistence of superconductivity and antiferromagnetic order in the compound Er$_{2}$O$_{2}$Bi with anti-ThCr$_{2}$Si$_{2}$-type structure through resistivity, magnetization, specific heat measurements and first-principle calculations. The superconducting transition temperature $T_{\rm c}$ of 1.23 K and antiferromagnetic transition temperature $T_{\rm N}$ of 3 K are observed in the sample with the best nominal composition. The superconducting upper critical field $H_{\rm c2}$(0) and electron-phonon coupling constant $\lambda$$_{e-ph}$ in Er$_{2}$O$_{2}$Bi are similar to those in the previously reported non-magnetic superconductor Y$_{2}$O$_{2}$Bi with the same structure, indicating that the superconductivity in Er$_{2}$O$_{2}$Bi may have the same origin as in Y$_{2}$O$_{2}$Bi. The first-principle calculations of Er$_{2}$O$_{2}$Bi show that the Fermi surface is mainly composed of the Bi 6$p$ orbitals both in the paramagnetic and antiferromagnetic state, implying minor effect of the 4$f$ electrons on the Fermi surface. Besides, upon increasing the oxygen incorporation in Er$_{2}$O$_{x}$Bi, $T_{\rm c}$ increases from 1 to 1.23 K and $T_{\rm N}$ decreases slightly from 3 to 2.96 K, revealing that superconductivity and antiferromagnetic order may compete with each other. The Hall effect measurements indicate that hole-type carrier density indeed increases with increasing oxygen content, which may account for the variations of $T_{\rm c}$ and $T_{\rm N}$ with different oxygen content.

Superconductivity frequently appears by doping compounds that show a collective phase transition. So far, however, this has not been observed in topological materials. Here we report the discovery of superconductivity induced by Ga doping in orthorhombic Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$, which undergoes a second-order metal-insulator-like transition at $\sim$58 K and is predicted to have a nontrivial band topology. It is found that the substitution of Ga for Ge leads to hole doping in Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7-x}$Ga$_{x}$. As a consequence, the phase transition is gradually suppressed and disappears above $x$ = 0.2. At this $x$ value, superconductivity emerges and $T_{\rm c}$ exhibits a dome-like doping dependence with a maximum value of 3.37 K at $x$ = 0.25. First-principles calculations suggest that the phase transition in Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$ is associated with an electronic instability driven by Fermi surface nesting and the nontrival band topology is preserved after Ga doping. Our results indicate that Ga-doped Re$_{3}$Ge$_{7}$ provides a rare opportunity to study the interplay between superconductivity and competing electronic states in a topologically nontrivial system., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

Chemical doping of topological materials may provide a possible route for realizing topological superconductivity. However, all such cases known so far are based on chalcogenides. Here we report the discovery of superconductivity induced by Re doping in the topological semimetal Mo$_{5}$Si$_{3}$ with a tetragonal structure. Partial substitution of Re for Mo in Mo$_{5-x}$Re$_{x}$Si$_{3}$ results in an anisotropic shrinkage of the unit cell up to the solubility limit of approximately $x$ = 2. Over a wide doping range (0.5 $\leq$ $x$ $\leq$ 2), these silicides are found to be weakly coupled superconductors with a fully isotropic gap. $T_{\rm c}$ increases monotonically with $x$ from 1.67 K to 5.78 K, the latter of which is the highest among superconductors of the same structural type. This trend in $T_{\rm c}$ correlates well with the variation of the number of valence electrons, and is mainly ascribed to the enhancement of electron-phonon coupling. In addition, band structure calculations reveal that superconducting Mo$_{5-x}$Re$_{x}$Si$_{3}$ exhibits nontrivial band topology characterized by $Z_{2}$ invariants (1;000) or (1;111) depending on the Re doping level. Our results suggest that transition metal silicides are a fertile ground for the exploration of candidate topological superconductors., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables

Single crystals of NbGe$_{2}$ which crystallize in a noncentrosymmetric hexagonal structure with chirality are synthesized and their superconductivity is investigated. Type-I superconductivity is confirmed by dc magnetization, field-induced second-to first-order phase transition in specific heat, and a small Ginzburg-Landau parameter $\kappa_{GL}=0.12$. The isothermal magnetization measurements show that there is a crossover from type-I to type-II/1 superconductivity with decreasing temperature and an unusually enhanced surface superconducting critical field ($H_{c3}$) is discovered. The band structure calculations indicate the presence of Kramer-Weyl nodes near the Fermi level. These observations demonstrate that NbGe$_{2}$ is an interesting and rare example involving the possible interplay of type-I superconductivity, noncentrosymmetric structure and topological properties., Comment: 7 pages,6 figures

We report the superconducting properties of new hexagonal Nb$_{10+2x}$Mo$_{35-x}$Ru$_{35-x}$Rh$_{10}$Pd$_{10}$ high-entropy alloys (HEAs) (0 $\leq$ $x$ $\leq$ 5). With increasing $x$, the superconducting transition temperature $T_{\rm c}$ shows a maximum of 6.19 K at $x$ = 2.5, while the zero-temperature upper critical field $B_{\rm c2}$(0) increases monotonically, reaching 8.3 T at $x$ = 5. For all $x$ values, the specific heat jump deviates from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schreiffer behavior. In addition, we show that $T_{\rm c}$ of these HEAs is not determined mainly by the density of states at the Fermi level and would be enhanced by lowering the valence electron concentration.

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are at the focus of current research for their diverse properties, including superconductivity and structural polymorphism. However, the polymorphic transition has been observed only in nonsuperconducting HEAs and mostly under high pressure. Here we report the discovery of superconductivity and temperature-driven polymorphism in the (V$_{0.5}$Nb$_{0.5}$)$_{3-x}$Mo$_{x}$Al$_{0.5}$Ga$_{0.5}$ (0.2 $\leq$ $x$ $\leq$ 1.4) HEAs. It is found that the as-cast HEA is of a single body-centered cubic (bcc) structure for $x$ = 0.2 and a mixture of the bcc and A15 structures for higher $x$ values. Upon annealing, the bcc structure undergoes a polymorphic transformation to the A15 one and all HEAs exhibits bulk superconductivity. For $x$ = 0.2, whereas the bcc polymorph is not superconducting down to 1.8 K, the A15 polymorph has a superconducting transition temperature $T_{\rm c}$ of 10.2 K and an estimated zero-temperature upper critical field $B_{\rm c2}$(0) of 20.1 T, both of which are the highest among HEA superconductors. With increasing Mo content $x$, both $T_{\rm c}$ and $B_{\rm c2}$(0) of the A15-type HEAs decrease, yet the large ratio of $B_{\rm c2}$(0)/$T_{\rm c}$ signifies a disorder-induced enhancement of the upper critical field over a wide $x$ range. The decrease in $T_{\rm c}$ is attributed to the decrease in both the electronic specific-heat coefficient and electron-phonon coupling strength. Furthermore, the valence electron count dependence of $T_{\rm c}$, which is different from both the binary A15 and other structurally different HEA superconductors, suggests that $T_{\rm c}$ may be increased further by reducing the number of valence electrons. Our results not only uncover HEA superconductors of a new structural type, but also provide the first example of polymorphism dependent superconductivity in HEAs., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Sci. China Mater., in press