Superconductivity in Weyl Semimetal Candidate MoTe2

In recent years, layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted considerable attention because of their rich physics; for example, these materials exhibit superconductivity, charge density waves, and the valley Hall effect. As a result, TMDs have promising potential applications in electronics, catalysis, and spintronics. Despite the fact that the majority of related research focuses on semiconducting TMDs (e.g., MoS2), the characteristics of WTe2 are provoking strong interest in semimetallic TMDs with extremely large magnetoresistance, pressure-driven superconductivity, and the predicted Weyl semimetal (WSM) state. In this work, we investigate the sister compound of WTe2, MoTe2, which is also predicted to be a WSM and a quantum spin Hall insulator in bulk and monolayer form, respectively. We find that MoTe2 exhibits superconductivity with a resistive transition temperature Tc of 0.1 K. The application of a small pressure (such as 0.4 GPa) is shown to dramatically enhance the Tc, with a maximum value of 8.2 K being obtained at 11.7 GPa (a more than 80-fold increase in Tc). This yields a dome-shaped superconducting phase diagram. Further explorations into the nature of the superconductivity in this system may provide insights into the interplay between strong correlations and topological physics.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Als die Erde ein Schneeball war: Neue Erkenntnisse zur Ära des Cryogeniums

Es gibt viele geologische Hinweise darauf, dass die Erde vor etwa 850 bis 635 Millionen Jahren phasenweise fast vollständig mit Eis bedeckt war. In einer solchen Klimaphase schirmte ein dicker Eispanzer den Ozean von den Einflüssen der Atmosphäre ab. Trotzdem konnte sich, angetrieben von Geothermie am Ozeanboden, eine ganz besondere Ozeanzirkulation entwickeln. Ihre Charakteristika unterscheiden sich deutlich von der heutigen Zirkulation. Sie könnte das Überleben von damaligen Mikroben- und Algenpopulationen in eisfreien Küstenoasen gewährleistet haben