Local corrugation and persistent charge density wave in ZrTe3 with Ni intercalation

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.97.155103

Authors: Alex M. Ganose (University College London; Diamond Light Source; University College London) , Liam Gannon (Diamond Light Source; University of Oxford) , Federica Fabrizi (Diamond Light Source) , Hariott Nowell (Diamond Light Source) , Sarah A. Barnett (Diamond Light Source) , Hechang Lei (Brookhaven National Laboratory) , Xiangde Zhu (Brookhaven National Laboratory) , Cedomir Petrovic (Brookhaven National Laboratory) , David O. Scanlon (University College London; Diamond Light Source; University College London) , Moritz Hoesch (Diamond Light Source)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Physical Review B , VOL 97

State: Published (Approved)
Published: April 2018
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 4924 , 6245 , 8776 , 12226

Abstract: The mechanism of emergent bulk superconductivity in transition-metal intercalated ZrTe3 is investigated by studying the effect of Ni doping on the band structure and charge density wave (CDW). The study reports theoretical and experimental results in the range of Ni0.01ZrTe3 to Ni0.05ZrTe3. In the highest doped samples, bulk superconductivity with Tc<TCDW is observed, with a reduced TCDW compared with pure ZrTe3. Relativistic ab initio calculations reveal that Ni incorporation occurs preferentially through intercalation in the van der Waals gap. Analysis of the structural and electronic effects of intercalation indicate buckling of the Te sheets adjacent to the Ni site akin to a locally stabilized CDW-like lattice distortion. In contrast to the changes of TCDW observed in resistivity, experiments with low-temperature x-ray diffraction, angle-resolved-photoemission spectroscopy, as well as temperature-dependent resistivity reveal the nearly unchanged persistence of the CDW into the regime of bulk superconductivity. The CDW gap is found to be unchanged in its extent in momentum space, with the gap size also unchanged or possibly slightly reduced upon Ni intercalation. Both experimental observations suggest that superconductivity coexists with the CDW in NixZrTe3.

Journal Keywords: Charge density waves; Composition; Conductivity; Crystal structure; Density of states; Dopants; Fermi surface; Impurities in superconductors; Multiband superconductivity; Quantum criticality; Superconductivity

Subject Areas: Physics, Materials


Instruments: I05-ARPES , I19-Small Molecule Single Crystal Diffraction

Added On: 03/04/2018 19:20

Discipline Tags:

Superconductors Quantum Materials Physics Hard condensed matter - structures Materials Science

Technical Tags:

Diffraction Spectroscopy Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction (SXRD) Angle Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES) High Resolution ARPES (HR-ARPES)