TY - JOUR
T1 - Discovery of superconductivity in quasicrystal
AU - Kamiya, K.
AU - Takeuchi, T.
AU - Kabeya, N.
AU - Wada, N.
AU - Ishimasa, T.
AU - Ochiai, A.
AU - Deguchi, K.
AU - Imura, K.
AU - Sato, N. K.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank A. Yamamoto for his help of sample preparation and thank Y. Hara for his assistance of low-temperature magnetization measurement. We also thank H. Takakura for his help to create the figure of the QC geometrical structure, and S. Sakai & N. Takemori for useful discussions. This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Nos. 26610100, 15H02111, 15H03685, and 16H01071), and Program for Leading Graduate Schools “Integrative Graduate Education and Research Program in Green Natural Sciences”, MEXT, Japan.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Superconductivity is ubiquitous as evidenced by the observation in many crystals including carrier-doped oxides and diamond. Amorphous solids are no exception. However, it remains to be discovered in quasicrystals, in which atoms are ordered over long distances but not in a periodically repeating arrangement. Here we report electrical resistivity, magnetization, and specific-heat measurements of Al-Zn-Mg quasicrystal, presenting convincing evidence for the emergence of bulk superconductivity at a very low transition temperature of T c 0.05 T c 0.05 K. We also find superconductivity in its approximant crystals, structures that are periodic, but that are very similar to quasicrystals. These observations demonstrate that the effective interaction between electrons remains attractive under variation of the atomic arrangement from periodic to quasiperiodic one. The discovery of the superconducting quasicrystal, in which the fractal geometry interplays with superconductivity, opens the door to a new type of superconductivity, fractal superconductivity.
AB - Superconductivity is ubiquitous as evidenced by the observation in many crystals including carrier-doped oxides and diamond. Amorphous solids are no exception. However, it remains to be discovered in quasicrystals, in which atoms are ordered over long distances but not in a periodically repeating arrangement. Here we report electrical resistivity, magnetization, and specific-heat measurements of Al-Zn-Mg quasicrystal, presenting convincing evidence for the emergence of bulk superconductivity at a very low transition temperature of T c 0.05 T c 0.05 K. We also find superconductivity in its approximant crystals, structures that are periodic, but that are very similar to quasicrystals. These observations demonstrate that the effective interaction between electrons remains attractive under variation of the atomic arrangement from periodic to quasiperiodic one. The discovery of the superconducting quasicrystal, in which the fractal geometry interplays with superconductivity, opens the door to a new type of superconductivity, fractal superconductivity.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-017-02667-x
DO - 10.1038/s41467-017-02667-x
M3 - Article
C2 - 29323126
AN - SCOPUS:85040459031
VL - 9
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 154
ER -