Unconventional superconductivity and magnetism in $\rm CePt_3Si_{1-x}Ge_x$

TL;DR

This paper investigates the coexistence of unconventional superconductivity and antiferromagnetic order in CePt_3Si, highlighting its unique non-centrosymmetric properties and effects of Si/Ge substitution on its phase diagram.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed study of CePt_3Si's superconductivity without inversion symmetry and explores how Si/Ge substitution influences its magnetic and superconducting phases.

Findings

CePt_3Si exhibits coexistence of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity.

Unique NMR relaxation rate behavior due to lack of inversion symmetry.

Phase diagram established through Si/Ge substitution studies.

Abstract

$\rm CePt_3Si$ is a novel ternary compound exhibiting antiferromagnetic order at $T_N \approx 2.2$ K and superconductivity (SC) at $T_c \approx 0.75$ K. Large values of $H_{c2}' \approx -8.5$ T/K and $H_{c2}(0) \approx 5$ T indicate Cooper pairs formed out of heavy quasiparticles. The mass enhancement originates from Kondo interaction with a characteristic temperature $T_K \approx 8$ K. NMR and $\mu$SR measurements evidence coexistence of SC and long range magnetic order on a microscopic scale. Moreover, $\rm CePt_3Si$ is the first heavy fermion SC without an inversion symmetry. This gives rise to a novel type of the NMR relaxation rate $1/T_1$ which is very unique and never reported before for other heavy fermion superconductors. Studies of Si/Ge substitution allow us to establish a phase diagram.