Superconductivity in CeCo2 nanoparticles

✍ Scribed by Y.Y. Chen; S.-J. Jang; C.R. Wang; H.D. Yang

• Book ID: 103883677
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 221 KB
• Volume: 359-361
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-4526
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physb.2005.01.126

✦ Synopsis

Both Ce and Co are essentially nonmagnetic in Pauli-paramagnetic CeCo 2 , which undergoes a superconducting transition near 1 K. When made into 58-A ˚nanoparticles, the compound becomes paramagnetic. Meanwhile, based on heat capacity measurements, the nanoparticles remain to be nonsuperconducting down to 0.4 K but exhibit a lowtemperature Kondo anomaly with C=T350 mJ/mol K 2 at 0.4 K. Such intriguing effects are consequences of the competition between superconducting gap and electronic spectrum's mean level spacing.