Magnetic field dependence of the low-temperature specific heat of the electron-doped superconductor Pr1.85Ce0.15CuO4

TL;DR

This study investigates how magnetic fields affect the low-temperature specific heat of the electron-doped superconductor Pr1.85Ce0.15CuO4, revealing a d-wave pairing symmetry and clarifying previous conflicting results.

Contribution

The paper provides new measurements of the magnetic field dependence of specific heat in Pr1.85Ce0.15CuO4, demonstrating a consistent d-wave pairing symmetry at low temperatures.

Findings

 ext{H}^{1/2} dependence of  ext{( ext{H})} suggests d-wave pairing symmetry.

No evidence of linear  ext{( ext{H})} dependence at 2K, contrary to previous studies.

Electronic specific heat follows  ext{C}_{el}(H, T)= ext{( ext{H})}T from 4.5K to 1.8K.

Abstract

We remeasured the magnetic field dependence of the low-temperature specific heat of the electron-doped superconductor Pr1.85Ce0.15CuO4 (T_C=22\pm 2K) under a different measurement procedure. Under field-cooling, the electronic specific heat follows C_{el}(H, T)=\gamma (H)T from 4.5K down to 1.8K. In the field range H_{C1}<H<0.5 H_{C2}, the Sommerfeld coefficient \gamma (H) is well fit by a power-law \gamma (H)\sim H^{1/2}. This result suggests that the pairing symmetry is d-wave-like at all temperatures below 4.5K. Our new measurement shows no evidence for the linear field dependence of \gamma (H) found previously at T=2K.