Uniform Mixing of High-Tc Superconductivity and Antiferromagnetism on a Single CuO2 Plane in Hg-based Five-layered Cuprate

We report a site selective Cu-NMR study on under-doped Hg-based five-layered high-$T_{\rm c}$ cuprate HgBa2Ca4Cu5Oy with a Tc=72 K. Antiferromagnetism (AF) has been found to take place at TN=290 K, exhibiting a large antiferromagnetic moment of 0.67-0.69uB at three inner planes (IP's). This value is comparable to the values reported for non-doped cuprates, suggesting that the IP may be in a nearly non-doped regime. Most surprisingly, the AF order is also detected with M(OP)=0.1uB even at two outer planes (OP's) that are responsible for the onset of superconductivity (SC). The high-Tc SC at Tc = 72 K can uniformly coexist on a microscopic level with the AF at OP's. This is the first microscopic evidence for the uniform mixed phase of AF and SC on a single CuO2 plane in a simple environment without any vortex lattice and/or stripe order.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. To be published in Phys.Rev.Let

Gapped ground state in the zigzag pseudospin-1/2 quantum antiferromagnetic chain compound PrTiNbO6

We report a single-crystal study on the magnetism of the rare-earth compound PrTiNbO$_6$ that experimentally realizes the zigzag pseudospin-$\frac{1}{2}$ quantum antiferromagnetic chain model. Random crystal electric field caused by the site mixing between non-magnetic Ti$^{4+}$ and Nb$^{5+}$, results in the non-Kramers ground state quasi-doublet of Pr$^{3+}$ with the effective pseudospin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Ising moment. Despite the antiferromagnetic intersite coupling of about 4 K, no magnetic freezing is detected down to 0.1 K, whilst the system approaches its ground state with almost zero residual spin entropy. At low temperatures, a sizable gap of about 1 K is observed in zero field. We ascribe this gap to off-diagonal anisotropy terms in the pseudospin Hamiltonian, and argue that rare-earth oxides open an interesting venue for studying magnetism of quantum spin chains.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, 1D correlated magnetism of non-Kramers Ising quasi-doublets in PrTiNbO

Low Temperature Thermodynamic Properties of the Heavy Fermion Compound YbAgGe Close to the Field-Induced Quantum Critical Point

We present temperature and field dependent heat capacity and magnetization data taken at temperatures down to 50 mK and in an applied magnetic field up to 11.5 Tesla for YbAgGe, a heavy-fermion compound with a field induced quantum critical point. These data clearly indicate that the same electronic degrees of freedom are responsible for the features seen in both specific heat and magnetization data. In addition, they further refine the different boundaries suggested for the H - T phase diagram of YbAgGe through previous, magneto-transport measurements, and allow for further understanding of different phases on the H - T phase diagram, in particular, clearly disconnecting the field-induced quantum critical point in YbAgGe from any sort of saturation of the Yb moment in higher applied magnetic field

Full-gap superconductivity robust against disorder in heavy-fermion CeCu2Si2

A key aspect of unconventional pairing by the antiferromagnetic spin-fluctuation mechanism is that the superconducting energy gap must have opposite sign on different parts of the Fermi surface. Recent observations of non-nodal gap structure in the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCu$_2$Si$_2$ were then very surprising, given that this material has long been considered a prototypical example of a superconductor where the Cooper pairing is magnetically mediated. Here we present a study of the effect of controlled point defects, introduced by electron irradiation, on the temperature-dependent magnetic penetration depth $\lambda(T)$ in CeCu$_2$Si$_2$. We find that the fully-gapped state is robust against disorder, demonstrating that low-energy bound states, expected for sign-changing gap structures, are not induced by nonmagnetic impurities. This provides bulk evidence for $s_{++}$-wave superconductivity without sign reversal.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures + Supplemental Material (1 page, 1 figure). Will appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Frustrated magnet for adiabatic demagnetization cooling to milli-Kelvin temperatures

Generation of very low temperatures has been crucially important for applications and fundamental research, as low-temperature quantum coherence enables operation of quantum computers and formation of exotic quantum states, such as superfluidity and superconductivity. One of the major techniques to reach milli-Kelvin temperatures is adiabatic demagnetization refrigeration (ADR). This method uses almost non-interacting magnetic moments of paramagnetic salts where large distances suppress interactions between the magnetic ions. The large spatial separations are facilitated by water molecules, with a drawback of reduced stability of the material. Here, we show that an H$_2$O-free frustrated magnet KBaYb(BO$_3$)$_2$ can be ideal refrigerant for ADR, achieving at least 22\,mK upon demagnetization under adiabatic conditions. Compared to conventional refrigerants, KBaYb(BO$_3)_2$ does not degrade even under high temperatures and ultra-high vacuum conditions. Further, its frustrated magnetic network and structural randomness enable cooling to temperatures several times lower than the energy scale of magnetic interactions, which is the main limiting factor for the base temperature of conventional refrigerants.Comment: accepted for publication in Communications Material