Study on Superconducting Properties of Heavy-Fermion CeIrIn5 Thin Films grown via Pulsed Laser Deposition

TL;DR

This study successfully synthesized CeIrIn5 thin films via pulsed laser deposition, revealing their superconducting and Kondo coherence properties, and demonstrating that their unconventional superconductivity remains consistent with bulk behavior.

Contribution

First demonstration of CeIrIn5 thin films with preserved superconducting properties, enabling exploration of quantum phases not accessible in bulk samples.

Findings

Superconducting transition temperatures of 0.58 K and 0.52 K for two film orientations

Kondo coherence temperatures of 41 K and 37 K for the films

Scaling behavior of upper critical field similar to bulk CeIrIn5

Abstract

Herein, we report CeIrIn5 thin-film growth on a MgF2 (001) substrate using pulsed laser deposition technique. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the thin films were either mainly a-axis-oriented (TF1) or a combination of a- and c-axis-oriented (TF2). The characteristic features of Kondo coherence temperature (Tcoh) and superconductivity (Tc) were clearly observed, where onset of Tc is 0.58 and 0.52 K, and Tcoh = 41 K and 37 K for TF1 and TF2, respectively. The temperature dependencies of the upper critical field (Hc2) of both thin films and the bulk CeIrIn5 single crystal revealed a scaling behavior, indicating that the nature of unconventional superconductivity has not been changed in the thin film. The successful synthesis of CeIrIn5 thin films is expected to open a new avenue for novel quantum phases that may have been difficult to explore in the bulk crystalline samples.