Influence of pressure on the transport, magnetic, and structural properties of superconducting Cr0.0009NbSe2 single crystal

Abstract

We investigate the superconducting critical current density (Jc), transition temperature (Tc), and flux pinning properties under hydrostatic pressure (P) for Cr0.0009NbSe2 single crystal. The application of P enhances Tc in both electrical resistivity (∼0.38 K GPa-1: 0 ≤ P ≤ 2.5 GPa) and magnetization (∼0.98 K GPa-1: 0 ≤ P ≤ 1 GPa) measurements, which leads to a monotonic increase in Jc and flux pinning properties. The field-dependent Jc at various temperatures under P is analyzed within the collecting pinning theory and it shows that δTc pinning is the crossover to δl pinning above the critical pressure (Pc ∼0.3 GPa). Our systematic analysis of the flux pinning mechanism indicates that both the density of pinning centers and pinning forces greatly increase with the application of P, which leads to an enhancement in the vortex state. Structural studies using synchrotron X-ray diffraction under pressure illustrate a stable hexagonal phase without any significant impurity phase and lattice parameter reduction with P shows highly anisotropic nature. © 2020 The Royal Society of Chemistry.