Spontaneous strain due to ferroquadrupolar ordering in UCu2_2Sn

The ternary uranium compound UCu$_2$Sn with a hexagonal ZrPt$_2$Al-type structure shows a phase transition at 16 K. We reported previously that huge lattice-softening is accompanied by the phase transition, which originates from ferroquadrupolar ordering of the ground state non-Kramers doublet $\Gamma_5$. A macroscopic strain, which is expected to emerge spontaneously, was not detected by powder X-ray diffraction in the temperature range between 4.2 and 300 K. To search the spontaneous strain, we have carried out thermal expansion measurements on a single-crystalline sample along the $a$, $b$ and $c$ axes using a capacitance technique with the resolution of $10^{-8}$. In the present experiment, we found the spontaneous $e_{xx} - e_{yy}$ strain which couples to the ground state doublet $\Gamma_5$. The effect of uniaxial pressure along the $a$, $b$ and $c$ axes on the transition temperature is also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Fabrication of submicron La2−x_{2-x}Srx_{x}CuO4_{4} intrinsic Josephson junction stacks

Intrinsic Josephson junction (IJJ) stacks of cuprate superconductors have potential to be implemented as intrinsic phase qubits working at relatively high temperatures. We report success in fabricating submicron La$_{2-x}$Sr$_{x}$CuO$_{4}$ (LSCO) IJJ stacks carved out of single crystals. We also show a new fabrication method in which argon ion etching is performed after focused ion beam etching. As a result, we obtained an LSCO IJJ stack in which resistive multi-branches appeared. It may be possible to control the number of stacked IJJs with an accuracy of a single IJJ by developing this method.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure