Coexistence of superconductivity and itinerant ferromagnetism in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex (x = 0.5 and 1.0), the first non-U material with Tc < TFM

TL;DR

This study reports the discovery of Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex compounds exhibiting coexistence of superconductivity and itinerant ferromagnetism, with Ce electrons responsible for both phenomena, marking a first non-U material with Tc < TFM.

Contribution

It introduces the first Ce-based superconducting itinerant ferromagnetic materials with Tc below TFM, demonstrating coexistence of these states in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex.

Findings

Se doping suppresses semiconducting behavior

Ferromagnetic transition temperature decreases with Se doping

Superconductivity coexists with ferromagnetism in these compounds

Abstract

We have carried out detailed magnetic and transport studies of the new Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex (x = 0.5, 1) superconductors derived by doping Se in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2. Se-doping produces several effects: it suppresses semiconducting like behavior observed in the undoped Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2, ferromagnetic ordering temperature, TFM, decreases considerably from 7.5 K (in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2) to 3.5 K and superconducting transition temperature, Tc, gets enhanced slightly to 2.9 - 3.3 K. Thus in these Se-doped materials, TFM is just marginally higher than Tc. Magnetization studies provide an evidence of bulk superconductivity in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex. Quite remarkably, as compared with the effective paramagnetic Ce-moment (~ 2.2 muB), the ferromagnetically ordered Ce-moment in the superconducting state is rather small (~ 0.1 muB). To the best of our knowledge, the title compounds are the first Ce-based superconducting itinerant ferromagnetic materials (Tc < TFM). We stress that Ce-4f electrons are responsible for both superconductivity and ferromagnetism just as U-5f electrons are in UCoGe. Furthermore, a novel feature of these materials is a dual hysteresis loop corresponding to both the ferromagnetism and the coexisting superconductivity. Such features of Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex put these materials apart from the well known U-containing superconducting ferromagnets reported so far.