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Data-driven exploration of new pressure-induced superconductivity in PbBi2Te4

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2018-12-20
JournalScience and Technology of Advanced Materials
AuthorsRyo Matsumoto, Zhufeng Hou, Masanori Nagao, Shintaro Adachi, Hiroshi Hara
InstitutionsUniversity of Yamanashi, Ehime University
Citations29

Candidate compounds for new thermoelectric and superconducting materials, which have narrow band gap and flat bands near band edges, were exhaustively searched by the high-throughput first-principles calculation from an inorganic materials database named AtomWork. We focused on PbBi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>4</sub> which has the similar electronic band structure and the same crystal structure with those of a pressure-induced superconductor SnBi<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>4</sub> explored by the same data-driven approach. The PbBi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>4</sub> was successfully synthesized as single crystals using a melt and slow cooling method. The core level X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis revealed Pb<sup>2+</sup>, Bi<sup>3+</sup> and Te<sup>2-</sup> valence states in PbBi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>4</sub>. The thermoelectric properties of the PbBi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>4</sub> sample were measured at ambient pressure and the electrical resistance was also evaluated under high pressure using a diamond anvil cell with boron-doped diamond electrodes. The resistance decreased with increasing of the pressure, and pressure-induced superconducting transitions were discovered at 2.5 K under 10 GPa. The maximum superconducting transition temperature increased up to 8.4 K at 21.7 GPa. The data-driven approach shows promising power to accelerate the discovery of new thermoelectric and superconducting materials.

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