Strong peak in Tc of Sr2RuO4 under uniaxial pressure
Abstract
Sr2RuO4 is an unconventional superconductor that has attracted widespread study because of its high purity and the possibility that its superconducting order parameter has odd parity. We study the dependence of its superconductivity on anisotropic strain. Applying uniaxial pressures of up to ~1 gigapascals along a 〈100〉 direction (a axis) of the crystal lattice results in the transition temperature (Tc) increasing from 1.5 kelvin in the unstrained material to 3.4 kelvin at compression by ≈0.6%, and then falling steeply. Calculations give evidence that the observed maximum Tc occurs at or near a Lifshitz transition when the Fermi level passes through a Van Hove singularity, and open the possibility that the highly strained, Tc = 3.4 K Sr2RuO4 has an even-parity, rather than an odd-parity, order parameter.
Citation
Steppke , A , Zhao , L , Barber , M , Scaffidi , T , Jerzembeck , F , Rosner , H , Gibbs , A S , Maeno , Y , Simon , S H , Mackenzie , A P & Hicks , C 2017 , ' Strong peak in T c of Sr 2 RuO 4 under uniaxial pressure ' , Science , vol. 355 , no. 6321 , eaaf9398 , pp. 1-9 . https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf9398
Publication
Science
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0036-8075Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017, the Author(s). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at www.sciencemag.org / https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf9398
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