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. 2015 Jul 23:6:7805.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms8805.

Pressure-driven dome-shaped superconductivity and electronic structural evolution in tungsten ditelluride

Xing-Chen Pan  1   2 , Xuliang Chen  2   3   4 , Huimei Liu  1   2 , Yanqing Feng  1   2 , Zhongxia Wei  1   2 , Yonghui Zhou  2   4 , Zhenhua Chi  2   3   4 , Li Pi  2   3 , Fei Yen  4 , Fengqi Song  1   2 , Xiangang Wan  1   2 , Zhaorong Yang  2   3   4 , Baigeng Wang  1   2 , Guanghou Wang  1   2 , Yuheng Zhang  2   3
Affiliations

Pressure-driven dome-shaped superconductivity and electronic structural evolution in tungsten ditelluride

Xing-Chen Pan et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

Tungsten ditelluride has attracted intense research interest due to the recent discovery of its large unsaturated magnetoresistance up to 60 T. Motivated by the presence of a small, sensitive Fermi surface of 5d electronic orbitals, we boost the electronic properties by applying a high pressure, and introduce superconductivity successfully. Superconductivity sharply appears at a pressure of 2.5 GPa, rapidly reaching a maximum critical temperature (Tc) of 7 K at around 16.8 GPa, followed by a monotonic decrease in Tc with increasing pressure, thereby exhibiting the typical dome-shaped superconducting phase. From theoretical calculations, we interpret the low-pressure region of the superconducting dome to an enrichment of the density of states at the Fermi level and attribute the high-pressure decrease in Tc to possible structural instability. Thus, tungsten ditelluride may provide a new platform for our understanding of superconductivity phenomena in transition metal dichalcogenides.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. WTe2 transport measurements at ambient pressure.
(a) The atomic structure of the WTe2 crystal. Blue and green circles represent W and Te, respectively. (b) Temperature dependence of electrical resistivity at ambient pressure. The inset shows detail of data below 50 K with no hint of any superconductivity. (c) The magnetoresistance (upper plot) and Hall resistivity (down plot) at different temperatures at ambient pressure. Different colours represent different temperatures as marked.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Experimental evidence of pressure-induced superconductivity.
(a) The temperature-dependent resistance under different pressures up to 16.1 GPa in run no. 1. The inset shows the temperature-dependent resistance from 1.8 to 300 K at 2.5 GPa. The onset of superconductivity can be seen from the drop in resistance. (b) Temperature dependence of resistance under various pressures from 9.3 to 68.5 GPa in run no. 2. (c) Magnetoresistance comparison at 10 K between ambient pressure and 2.5 GPa. Magnetoresistance is strongly suppressed with increasing pressure when superconductivity becomes predominant. (d) The real part of the a.c. susceptibility versus temperature at different pressures.
Figure 3
Figure 3. The upper critical field analysis of the WTe2 superconductor.
(a)Temperature dependence of the resistance under different fields up to 1.5 T at 24.6 GPa. (b) The Tc–H phase diagram at 24.6 GPa. The black curve is the best-fit line.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Density functional theory calculations.
(a) The pressure dependence of the lattice parameters (upper) and c/a ratio obtained from geometry optimization (lower). (b) The calculated evolution of the Fermi surface contour at various pressures (marked in the plot).
Figure 5
Figure 5. The dome-shaped superconducting Tc–P phase diagram and possible interpretation.
(a) Onset temperature of the superconductivity plotted against applied pressure. A maximum Tc of 7 K occurs near 20 GPa. In runs no. 1 and 2, no pressure-transmitting medium was used while for run no. 3, Daphne oil was used as the pressure medium. The right-hand axis is the magnetoresistance ratio, which is strongly suppressed by the pressure. (b) The calculated density of states at the Fermi level plotted against pressure.
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