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Magnetic-field-induced superconductivity in a two-dimensional organic conductor

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Abstract

The application of a sufficiently strong magnetic field to a superconductor will, in general, destroy the superconducting state. Two mechanisms are responsible for this. The first is the Zeeman effect1,2, which breaks apart the paired electrons if they are in a spin-singlet (but not a spin-triplet) state. The second is the so-called ‘orbital’ effect, whereby the vortices penetrate into the superconductors and the energy gain due to the formation of the paired electrons is lost3. For the case of layered, two-dimensional superconductors, such as the high-Tc copper oxides, the orbital effect is reduced when the applied magnetic field is parallel to the conducting layers4. Here we report resistance and magnetic-torque experiments on single crystals of the quasi-two-dimensional organic conductor λ-(BETS)2FeCl4, where BETS is bis(ethylenedithio)tetraselenafulvalene5,6,7,8. We find that for magnetic fields applied exactly parallel to the conducting layers of the crystals, superconductivity is induced for fields above 17 T at a temperature of 0.1 K. The resulting phase diagram indicates that the transition temperature increases with magnetic field, that is, the superconducting state is further stabilized with magnetic field.

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Figure 1: a, Temperature versus magnetic field phase diagram for λ-(BETS)2FeCl4 when the magnetic field is applied parallel to the a′ or c axis.
Figure 2: Interlayer resistance (for current parallel to the b* axis) when the magnetic field is exactly parallel to the conduction layers.
Figure 3: Magnetic torque measured by cantilever technique.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Institute for Metals, Tsukuba, 305-0003, Ibaraki, Japan

    S. Uji, H. Shinagawa, T. Terashima, T. Yakabe & Y. Terai

  2. Electrotechnical laboratory, Tsukuba, 305-8568, Ibaraki, Japan

    M. Tokumoto

  3. Research Centre for Spectrochemistry, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-0033, Tokyo, Japan

    A. Kobayashi

  4. Institute for Molecular Science, Okazaki, Aichi, 444-8585, Japan

    H. Tanaka & H. Kobayashi

Authors
  1. S. Uji
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  2. H. Shinagawa
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  3. T. Terashima
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  4. T. Yakabe
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  5. Y. Terai
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  6. M. Tokumoto
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  7. A. Kobayashi
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  8. H. Tanaka
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  9. H. Kobayashi
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Correspondence to S. Uji.

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Uji, S., Shinagawa, H., Terashima, T. et al. Magnetic-field-induced superconductivity in a two-dimensional organic conductor. Nature 410, 908–910 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35073531

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