The suppression of magnetism and the development of superconductivity within the collapsed tetragonal phase of Ca0.67Sr0.33Fe2As2 at high pressure

Structural and electronic characterization of (Ca0.67Sr0.33)Fe2As2 has been performed as a func- tion of pressure up to 12 GPa using conventional and designer diamond anvil cells. The compound (Ca0.67Sr0.33)Fe2As2 behaves intermediate between its end members-CaFe2As2 and SrFe2As2- displaying a suppression of magnetism and the onset of superconductivity. Like other members of the AEFe2As2 family, (Ca0.67Sr0.33)Fe2As2 undergoes a pressure-induced isostructural volume collapse, which we associate with the development of As-As bonding across the mirror plane of the structure. This collapsed tetragonal phase abruptly cuts off the magnetic state, giving rise to superconductivity with a maximum Tc=22.2 K. The maximum Tc of the superconducting phase is not strongly correlated with any structural parameter, but its proximity to the abrupt suppression of magnetism as well as the volume collapse transition suggests that magnetic interactions and structural inhomogeneity may play a role in its development. The pressure-dependent evolution of the ordered states and crystal structures in (Ca,Sr)Fe2As2 provides an avenue to understand the generic behavior of the other members of the AEFe2As2 family.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Structural aspects of alpha-omega transformation in group IV transition metals and alloys

The three most common crystal structures encountered in group IV transition metals Ti, Zr, and Hf and alloys based on them, under different temperature, pressure and alloy concentration conditions, are hcp(α), bcc (β) and simple hexagonal (ω ). Although the structural relations of α⇌β andβ⇌ω transformations are well understood, the same is not true for α→ω phase change, which occurs at high pressures. We have done high pressure experiments on Ti-V alloys, followed by electron diffraction to study this. These patterns from pressure treated foils of alloys Ti95 V5 and Ti91 V9 showed the presence ofβ-phase with fourω variants. Some of them showed the existence of all three phases, α,β andω , with the number of variants given by the lattice correspondence matrix, derived through the orientation relations of α→β andβ→ ω . This is a clear evidence that the α→ ω transformation proceedsvia theβ-phase. The atomic rearrangements required for α→ ω are found to be much smaller if the path is via theβ-phase, rather than the earlier model of Silcock

Pressure-induced superconductivity in the giant Rashba system BiTeI

At ambient pressure, BiTeI is the first material found to exhibit a giant Rashba splitting of the bulk electronic bands. At low pressures, BiTeI undergoes a transition from trivial insulator to topological insulator. At still higher pressures, two structural transitions are known to occur. We have carried out a series of electrical resistivity and AC magnetic susceptibility measurements on BiTeI at pressure up to ~40 GPa in an effort to characterize the properties of the high-pressure phases. A previous calculation found that the high-pressure orthorhombic P4/nmm structure BiTeI is a metal. We find that this structure is superconducting with Tc values as high as 6 K. AC magnetic susceptibility measurements support the bulk nature of the superconductivity. Using electronic structure and phonon calculations, we compute Tc and find that our data is consistent with phonon-mediated superconductivity.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Thermal Stabilization of the HCP Phase in Titanium

We have used a tight-binding model that is fit to first-principles electronic-structure calculations for titanium to calculate quasi-harmonic phonons and the Gibbs free energy of the hexagonal close-packed (hcp) and omega crystal structures. We show that the true zero-temperature ground-state is the omega structure, although this has never been observed experimentally at normal pressure, and that it is the entropy from the thermal population of phonon states which stabilizes the hcp structure at room temperature. We present the first completely theoretical prediction of the temperature- and pressure-dependence of the hcp-omega phase transformation and show that it is in good agreement with experiment. The quasi-harmonic approximation fails to adequately treat the bcc phase because the zero-temperature phonons of this structure are not all stable