Observation of the Specific Heat Jump in the Se-Substituted MoTe2 Single Crystals

Materials (Basel). 2022 May 25;15(11):3782. doi: 10.3390/ma15113782.

Abstract

1T'-MoTe2 has gained considerable attention owing to its topological character. This material undergoes spatial inversion symmetry at 300 K. A structural transition to the Td phase, which is represented by a kink in the resistivity, was observed below 250 K without inversion symmetry along the c-axis, while superconductivity was observed at 0.1 K. Substitution of Se into this material suppressed the appearance of the kink structure and increased the superconducting transition temperature to 2 K, which is consistent with previously reported results on polycrystalline samples. However, a specific heat jump was observed in the obtained single crystals, which did not exhibit kink structures in their resistivity. The results suggest that the Td structure was not suppressed entirely after Se substitution and that superconductivity was achieved without inversion symmetry.

Keywords: superconductivity; transition metal chalcogenides; transport properties.

Grants and funding

This work was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (JP18K13505) in a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). This work was partly supported by a grant for research from Nihon University (College of Science and Technology) and a grant for special research from the President of Nihon University.