Pressure-induced superconductivity in the giant Rashba system BiTeI. (27th January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: VanGennep, D; Linscheid, A; Jackson, D E; Weir, S T; Vohra, Y K; Berger, H; Stewart, G R; Hennig, R G; Hirschfeld, P J; Hamlin, J J
• Is Part Of: Journal of physics. Volume 29:Number 9(2017)
• Publication Date: 2017-01-27
• Subjects: high-pressure -- superconductivity -- Rashba -- topological -- metal-insulator transition -- Eliashberg function; Condensed matter -- Periodicals; Matière condensée -- Périodiques; Vaste stoffen; Vloeistoffen; Natuurkunde; Electronic journals; Computer network resources; 530.4105
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/aa5567
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0953-8984

Abstract

Abstract: At ambient pressure, BiTeI exhibits 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 P 4/ nmm structure BiTeI is a metal. We find that this structure is superconducting with T c 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 T c and find that our data is consistent with phonon-mediated superconductivity.