Upper Critical Magnetic Field far above the Paramagnetic Pair-Breaking Limit of Superconducting One-Dimensional Li0.9Mo6O17 Single Crystals

J.-F. Mercure, A. F. Bangura, Xiaofeng Xu, N. Wakeham, A. Carrington, P. Walmsley, M. Greenblatt, and N. E. Hussey
Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 187003 – Published 4 May 2012
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Abstract

The upper critical field Hc2 of purple bronze Li0.9Mo6O17 is found to exhibit a large anisotropy, in quantitative agreement with that expected from the observed electrical resistivity anisotropy. With the field aligned along the most conducting axis, Hc2 increases monotonically with decreasing temperature to a value 5 times larger than the estimated paramagnetic pair-breaking field. Theories for the enhancement of Hc2 invoking spin-orbit scattering or strong-coupling superconductivity are shown to be inadequate in explaining the observed behavior, suggesting that the pairing state in Li0.9Mo6O17 is unconventional and possibly spin triplet.

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  • Received 20 January 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.187003

© 2012 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

J.-F. Mercure1, A. F. Bangura1,2, Xiaofeng Xu1,3, N. Wakeham1, A. Carrington1, P. Walmsley1, M. Greenblatt4, and N. E. Hussey1

  • 1H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, BS8 1TL, United Kingdom
  • 2RIKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
  • 3Department of Physics, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 310036, China
  • 4Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA

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Issue

Vol. 108, Iss. 18 — 4 May 2012

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