Structural and Superconducting Properties in the Te-doped Spinel CuRh2Se4

TL;DR

This study investigates how tellurium doping influences the structural and superconducting properties of CuRh2Se4, revealing increased critical magnetic fields but decreased transition temperatures and structural changes.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of Te doping on the crystal structure and superconductivity of CuRh2Se4, including phase transitions and critical field enhancements.

Findings

Te doping increases the upper critical magnetic field.

Layered CuRh2Se4-xTex does not exhibit superconductivity.

Te doping decreases the superconducting transition temperature (Tc).

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the impact of tellurium (Te) doping on the spinel superconductor CuRh2Se4. We conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the structural and superconducting properties of the system using various techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), resistivity, magnetization, and specific heat measurements. Based on our XRD analysis, we found that the spinel superconductor CuRh2Se4-xTex crystallizes in the space group Fd3m(227) with x in the region of 0 to 0.28, while the layered compound CuRh2Se4-xTex crystallizes in the space group P3m1 (164) with x in the region of 2.8 to 4.0. The upper critical magnetic field can be increased from 0.95(2) T for CuRh2Se4 to 3.44(1) T for CuRh2Se3.72Te0.28 by doping with elemental Te. However, the layered compound CuRh2Se4-xTex did not exhibit superconducting properties. Besides, the specific heat measurements of CuRh2Se4-xTex (x = 0, 0.1, 0.28) indicate that the Te element doping affects the electronic structure and interactions of the material and breaks the stability of the superconducting pairing, which leads to a decrease in the Tc. Finally, we show the electronic phase diagram of Tc with Te doping to summarise our findings.