Superconductivity in breathing kagome-structured C14 Laves phase XOs<sub>2</sub>(X = Zr, Hf)
P. K. Meena, Manasi Mandal, P. K. Manna, Shashank Srivastava, S. Sharma, P. Mishra, R. P. Singh
Abstract
Abstract Recently, the emergence of superconductivity in kagome metals has generated significant interest due to its interaction with flat bands and topological electronic states, which exhibit a range of unusual quantum characteristics. This study thoroughly investigates largely unexplored breathing kagome structure C14 Laves phase compounds XOs 2 (X = Zr, Hf) by XRD, electrical transport, magnetization, and specific heat measurements. Our analyses confirm the presence of the MgZn 2 -type structure in ZrOs 2 and HfOs 2 compounds, exhibiting type-II superconductivity with critical temperature ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">C</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) values of 2.90(3) K and 2.69(6) K, respectively. Furthermore, specific heat measurements and electron–phonon coupling constants for both compounds indicate weakly coupled fully gapped superconductivity.