Transport properties of single crystals with high Pr-site filling fraction grown under high pressure

✍ Scribed by Kenya Tanaka; Takahiro Namiki; Takashi Saito; Sho Tatsuoka; Atsushi Imamura; Keitaro Kuwahara; Yuji Aoki; Hideyuki Sato

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 321 KB
• Volume: 404
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-4526
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physb.2009.07.023

✦ Synopsis

We have succeeded in growing Pr x Os 4 Sb 12 single crystals under $4 GPa with high Pr-site filling fraction x. The electrical resistance measurements clearly show that the superconducting (SC) transition is sharper and the onset temperatures is lower in the single crystal samples grown under high pressure compared to that of the sample grown under ambient pressure. These results suggest that the double SC transition ascribed to sample inhomogeneity is suppressed in the sample grown under high pressure.

The change of 4f-electron crystalline electric field energy splitting between the G 1 ground state and the G ð2Þ 4 first excited state in the sample made under high pressure is proposed as one of the possible origins of the suppression of the double SC transition.