TY - JOUR
T1 - Sc-Zr-Nb-Rh-Pd and Sc-Zr-Nb-Ta-Rh-Pd High-Entropy Alloy Superconductors on a CsCl-Type Lattice
AU - Stolze, Karoline
AU - Tao, Jing
AU - Von Rohr, Fabian O.
AU - Kong, Tai
AU - Cava, Robert J.
N1 - Funding Information:
*E-mail: kstolze@princeton.edu. *E-mail: rcava@princeton.edu. ORCID Karoline Stolze: 0000-0002-1909-4313 Author Contributions The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript. Funding This work was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation EPiQS program, grant GBMF-4412. Work done at Brookhaven National Laboratory was supported by the DOE BES, by the Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under Contract DE-SC0012704, and through the use of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials. Notes The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2018/2/13
Y1 - 2018/2/13
N2 - We have synthesized previously unreported high-entropy alloys (HEAs) in the pentanary (ScZrNb)1-x[RhPd]x and hexanary (ScZrNbTa)1-x[RhPd]x systems. The materials have CsCl-type structures and mixed site occupancies. Both HEAs are type-II superconductors with strongly varying critical temperatures (Tc's) depending on the valence electron count (VEC); the Tc's increase monotonically with decreasing VEC within each series, and do not follow the trends seen for either crystalline or amorphous transition metal superconductors. The (ScZrNb)0.65[RhPd]0.35 HEA with the highest Tc, -9.3 K, also exhibits the largest μ0Hc2(0) = 10.7 T. The pentanary and hexanary HEAs have higher superconducting transition temperatures than their simple binary intermetallic relatives with the CsCl-type structure and a surprisingly ductile mechanical behavior. The presence of niobium, even at the 20% level, has a positive impact on the Tc. Nevertheless, niobium-free (ScZr)0.50[RhPd]0.50, as mother-compound of both superconducting HEAs found here, is itself superconducting, proving that superconductivity is an intrinsic feature of the bulk material.
AB - We have synthesized previously unreported high-entropy alloys (HEAs) in the pentanary (ScZrNb)1-x[RhPd]x and hexanary (ScZrNbTa)1-x[RhPd]x systems. The materials have CsCl-type structures and mixed site occupancies. Both HEAs are type-II superconductors with strongly varying critical temperatures (Tc's) depending on the valence electron count (VEC); the Tc's increase monotonically with decreasing VEC within each series, and do not follow the trends seen for either crystalline or amorphous transition metal superconductors. The (ScZrNb)0.65[RhPd]0.35 HEA with the highest Tc, -9.3 K, also exhibits the largest μ0Hc2(0) = 10.7 T. The pentanary and hexanary HEAs have higher superconducting transition temperatures than their simple binary intermetallic relatives with the CsCl-type structure and a surprisingly ductile mechanical behavior. The presence of niobium, even at the 20% level, has a positive impact on the Tc. Nevertheless, niobium-free (ScZr)0.50[RhPd]0.50, as mother-compound of both superconducting HEAs found here, is itself superconducting, proving that superconductivity is an intrinsic feature of the bulk material.
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b04578
DO - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b04578
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042037185
SN - 0897-4756
VL - 30
SP - 906
EP - 914
JO - Chemistry of Materials
JF - Chemistry of Materials
IS - 3
ER -