Record-High <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:msub><mml:mi>T</mml:mi><mml:mi>c</mml:mi></mml:msub></mml:math> and Dome-Shaped Superconductivity in a Medium-Entropy Alloy TaNbHfZr under Pressure up to 160 GPa
L. J. Wu, Jianguo Si, Shixue Guan, He Zhang, Jie Dou, J. L. Luo, Jie Yang, Hui Yu, Jiawei Zhang, Xiaoli Ma, Pengtao Yang, Rui Zhou, Miao Liu, Fang Hong, Xiaohui Yu
Abstract
Superconductivity has been one of the focal points in medium and high-entropy alloys (MEAs-HEAs) since the discovery of the body-centered cubic (bcc) HEA superconductor in 2014. Until now, the superconducting transition temperature (T_{c}) of most MEA and HEA superconductors has not exceeded 10 K. Here, we report a TaNbHfZr bulk MEA superconductor crystallized in the BCC structure with a T_{c} of 15.3 K which set a new record. During compression, T_{c} follows a dome-shaped curve. It reaches a broad maximum of roughly 15 K at around 70 GPa before decreasing to 9.3 K at 157.2 GPa. First-principles calculations attribute the dome-shaped curve to two competing effects, that is, the enhancement of the logarithmically averaged characteristic phonon frequency ω_{log} and the simultaneous suppression of the electron-phonon coupling constant λ. Thus, TaNbHfZr MEA may have a promising future for studying the underlying quantum physics, as well as developing new applications under extreme conditions.