Muon spin rotation/relaxation measurements of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor Mg10Ir19B16

A. A. Aczel, T. J. Williams, T. Goko, J. P. Carlo, W. Yu, Y. J. Uemura, T. Klimczuk, J. D. Thompson, R. J. Cava, and G. M. Luke
Phys. Rev. B 82, 024520 – Published 26 July 2010

Abstract

We have searched for time-reversal symmetry-breaking fields in the noncentrosymmetric superconductor Mg10Ir19B16 via muon spin relaxation (μSR) in zero applied field. We also measured the temperature dependence of the superfluid density by muon spin rotation in transverse field to investigate the superconducting pairing symmetry in two polycrystalline samples of significantly different purities. In the high-purity sample, we detected no time-reversal symmetry-breaking fields greater than 0.05 G. The superfluid density was also found to be exponentially flat as T0 and so can be fit to a single-gap BCS model. In contrast, the lower purity sample showed an increase in the zero-field μSR relaxation rate below Tc corresponding to a characteristic field strength of 0.6 G. While the temperature dependence of the superfluid density was also found to be consistent with a single-gap BCS model, the magnitude as T0 was found to be much lower for a given applied field than in the case of the high-purity sample. These findings suggest that Mg10Ir19B16 is a superconductor characterized by a single-gap function with no nodes and sample quality drastically affects the superconducting properties of this system.

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  • Received 14 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.024520

©2010 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

A. A. Aczel1, T. J. Williams1, T. Goko1,2,3, J. P. Carlo3, W. Yu4, Y. J. Uemura3, T. Klimczuk5,6, J. D. Thompson5, R. J. Cava7, and G. M. Luke1,8,9

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1
  • 2TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 2A3
  • 3Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
  • 5Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 6European Commission, Institute for Transuranium Elements, Joint Research Center, P.O. Box 2340, D-76125 Karlsruhe, Germany
  • 7Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
  • 8Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1
  • 9Canadian Institute of Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1Z8

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Issue

Vol. 82, Iss. 2 — 1 July 2010

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