Superconductivity in Mo4Ga20As with endohedral gallium clusters

Bin-Bin Ruan; Le-Wei Chen; Yun-Qing Shi; Jun-Kun Yi; Qing-Song Yang; Meng-Hu Zhou; Ming-Wei Ma; Gen-Fu Chen; Zhi-An Ren

doi:10.1088/1361-648X/acc3ec

Superconductivity in Mo₄Ga₂₀As with endohedral gallium clusters

J Phys Condens Matter. 2023 Mar 21;35(21). doi: 10.1088/1361-648X/acc3ec.

Authors

Bin-Bin Ruan¹, Le-Wei Chen^{1

2}, Yun-Qing Shi^{1

2}, Jun-Kun Yi^{1

2}, Qing-Song Yang^{1

2}, Meng-Hu Zhou¹, Ming-Wei Ma¹, Gen-Fu Chen^{1

2}, Zhi-An Ren^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Physics and Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
² School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 36913736
DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/acc3ec

Abstract

We report the discovery and detailed investigation of superconductivity in Mo₄Ga₂₀As. Mo₄Ga₂₀As crystallizes in a space group ofI4/m(No. 87), with the lattice parametersa= 12.86352 Å andc= 5.30031 Å. The resistivity, magnetization, and specific heat data reveal Mo₄Ga₂₀As to be a type-II superconductor withT_c= 5.6 K. The upper and lower critical fields are estimated to be 2.78 T and 22.0 mT, respectively. In addition, electron-phonon coupling in Mo₄Ga₂₀As is possibly stronger than the BCS weak-coupling limit. First-principles calculations suggest the Fermi level being dominated by the Mo-4dand Ga-4porbitals.

Keywords: endohedral cluster; intermetallic; specific heat; superconductivity; transport properties.