Friday, April 19, 2013

1304.5106 (Huiyang Gou et al.)

Discovery of a superhard iron tetraboride superconductor    [PDF]

Huiyang Gou, Natalia Dubrovinskaia, Elena Bykova, Alexander A. Tsirlin, Deepa Kasinathan, Asta Richter, Marco Merlini, Michael Hanfland, Artem M. Abakumov, Dmitry Batuk, Gustaaf Van Tendeloo, Yoichi Nakajima, Aleksey N. Kolmogorov, Leonid Dubrovinsky
Single crystals of novel orthorhombic (space group Pnnm) iron tetraboride FeB4 were synthesised at pressures above 8 GPa and high temperatures. Magnetic susceptibility measurements demonstrated bulk superconductivity below 2.9 K. The putative isotope effect on the superconducting critical temperature indicates that FeB4 is likely a phonon-mediated superconductor, which is unexpected in the light of previous knowledge on Fe-based superconductors. The discovered iron tetraboride is highly incompressible and has the nanoindentation hardness of 65(5) GPa, thus, it opens a new class of highly desirable materials combining advanced mechanical properties and superconductivity.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.5106

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