Superconductivity in Weyl semimetal candidate MoTe2

Qi Y, Naumov PG, Ali MN, Rajamathi CR, Schnelle W, Barkalov O, Hanfland M, Wu SC, Shekhar C, Sun Y, Suess V, Schmidt M, Schwarz U, Pippel E, Werner P, Hillebrand R, Foerster T, Kampert E, Parkin S, Cava RJ, Felser C, Yan B, Medvedev SA (2016)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2016

Journal

Nature Communications Nature Publishing Group: Nature Communications

Book Volume: 7

Article Number: 11038

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11038

Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted research interest over the last few decades due to their interesting structural chemistry, unusual electronic properties, rich intercalation chemistry and wide spectrum of potential applications. Despite the fact that the majority of related research focuses on semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides (for example, MoS2), recently discovered unexpected properties of WTe2 are provoking strong interest in semimetallic transition metal dichalcogenides featuring large magnetoresistance, pressure-driven superconductivity and Weyl semimetal states. We investigate the sister compound of WTe2, MoTe2, predicted to be a Weyl semimetal and a quantum spin Hall insulator in bulk and monolayer form, respectively. We find that bulk MoTe2 exhibits superconductivity with a transition temperature of 0.10 K. Application of external pressure dramatically enhances the transition temperature up to maximum value of 8.2 K at 11.7 GPa. The observed dome-shaped superconductivity phase diagram provides insights into the interplay between superconductivity and topological physics.

Involved external institutions

Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Physik fester Stoffe (MPI CPfS) / Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids DE Germany (DE) Princeton University US United States (USA) (US) European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) FR France (FR) Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik (MSP) / Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics DE Germany (DE) Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Qi, Y., Naumov, P.G., Ali, M.N., Rajamathi, C.R., Schnelle, W., Barkalov, O.,... Medvedev, S.A. (2016). Superconductivity in Weyl semimetal candidate MoTe2. Nature Communications, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11038

MLA:

Qi, Yanpeng, et al. "Superconductivity in Weyl semimetal candidate MoTe2." Nature Communications 7 (2016).

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