RESUMEN
The crystal structure of a solid controls the interactions between the electronically active units and thus its electronic properties. In the high-temperature superconducting copper oxides, only one spatial arrangement of the electronically active Cu(2+) units-a two-dimensional square lattice-is available to study the competition between the cooperative electronic states of magnetic order and superconductivity. Crystals of the spherical molecular C(60)(3-) anion support both superconductivity and magnetism but can consist of fundamentally distinct three-dimensional arrangements of the anions. Superconductivity in the A(3)C(60) (A = alkali metal) fullerides has been exclusively associated with face-centred cubic (f.c.c.) packing of C(60)(3-) (refs 2, 3), but recently the most expanded (and thus having the highest superconducting transition temperature, T(c); ref. 4) composition Cs(3)C(60) has been isolated as a body-centred cubic (b.c.c.) packing, which supports both superconductivity and magnetic order. Here we isolate the f.c.c. polymorph of Cs(3)C(60) to show how the spatial arrangement of the electronically active units controls the competing superconducting and magnetic electronic ground states. Unlike all the other f.c.c. A(3)C(60) fullerides, f.c.c. Cs(3)C(60) is not a superconductor but a magnetic insulator at ambient pressure, and becomes superconducting under pressure. The magnetic ordering occurs at an order of magnitude lower temperature in the geometrically frustrated f.c.c. polymorph (Néel temperature T(N) = 2.2 K) than in the b.c.c.-based packing (T(N) = 46 K). The different lattice packings of C(60)(3-) change T(c) from 38 K in b.c.c. Cs(3)C(60) to 35 K in f.c.c. Cs(3)C(60) (the highest found in the f.c.c. A(3)C(60) family). The existence of two superconducting packings of the same electronically active unit reveals that T(c) scales universally in a structure-independent dome-like relationship with proximity to the Mott metal-insulator transition, which is governed by the role of electron correlations characteristic of high-temperature superconducting materials other than fullerides.
RESUMEN
The results of the investigation of MGa(2) with M = Ca, Sr, Ba and of MGa(4) with M = Na, Ca, Sr, Ba by a combined application of NMR spectroscopy and quantum mechanical calculations are comprehensively evaluated. The electric-field gradient (EFG) was identified as the most reliable measure to study intermetallic compounds, since it is accessible with high precision by quantum mechanical calculations and, for nuclear spin I>1/2, by NMR spectroscopy. The EFG values obtained by NMR spectroscopy and quantum mechanical calculations agree very well for both series of investigated compounds. A deconvolution of the calculated EFGs into their contributions reveals its sensitivity to the local environment of the atoms. The EFGs of the investigated di- and tetragallides are dominated by the population of the p(x)-, p(y)-, and p(z)-like states of the Ga atoms. A general combined approach for the investigation of disordered intermetallic compounds by application of diffraction methods, NMR spectroscopy, and quantum mechanical calculations is suggested. This scheme can also be applied to other classes of crystalline disordered inorganic materials.
RESUMEN
Single crystals of boron-doped Ba8Al14Si31 clathrate I phase were prepared using Al flux growth. The structure and elemental composition of the samples were characterized by single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction; elemental analysis; and multinuclear (27)Al, (11)B, and (29)Si solid-state NMR. The samples' compositions of Ba8B0.17Al14Si31, Ba8B0.19Al15Si31, and Ba8B0.32Al14Si31 were consistent with the framework-deficient clathrate I structure Ba8Al(x)Si(42-3/4x)cube(4-1/4x) (x = 14, cube = lattice defect). Solid-state NMR provides further evidence for boron doped into the framework structure. Temperature-dependent resistivity indicates metallic behavior, and the negative Seebeck coefficient indicates that transport processes are dominated by electrons. Thermal conductivity is low, but not significantly lower than that observed in the undoped Ba8Al14Si31 prepared in the same manner.
RESUMEN
The Verwey transition in Fe3O4, a complex structural phase transition concomitant with a jump in electrical conductivity by two orders of magnitude, has been a benchmark for charge ordering (CO) phenomena in mixed-valence transition metal materials. CO is of central importance, because it frequently competes with functional properties such as superconductivity or metallic ferromagnetism. However, the CO state in Fe3O4 turned out to be complex, and the mechanism of the Verwey transition remains controversial. We demonstrate an archetypical Verwey-type transition in an open p-shell anionic mixed-valence compound using complementary diffraction and spectroscopic techniques. In Cs4O6, a phase change from a cubic structure with a single crystallographic site for the molecular O2x- building units to a tetragonal structure with ordered superoxide O2- and peroxide O22- entities is accompanied by a drastic drop in electronic conductivity and molecular charge fluctuation rates. The simple CO pattern of molecular units and the lack of magnetic order suggest Cs4O6 as a model system for disentangling the complex interplay of charge, lattice, orbital, and spin degrees of freedom in Verwey-type CO processes.
RESUMEN
We report a systematic nuclear magnetic resonance investigation of the (23)Na spin-lattice relaxation rate, 1/T1, in sodium loaded low-silica X (LSX) zeolite, Nan/Na12-LSX, for various loading levels of sodium atoms n across the metal-to-insulator crossover. For high loading levels of n ≥ 14.2, 1/T1T shows nearly temperature-independent behaviour between 10 K and 25 K consistent with the Korringa relaxation mechanism and the metallic ground state. As the loading levels decrease below n ≤ 11.6, the extracted density of states (DOS) at the Fermi level sharply decreases, although a residual DOS at Fermi level is still observed even in the samples that lack the metallic Drude-peak in the optical reflectance. The observed crossover is a result of a complex loading-level dependence of electric potential felt by the electrons confined to zeolite cages, where the electronic correlations and disorder both play an important role.
RESUMEN
Understanding the relationship between the superconducting, the neighboring insulating, and the normal metallic state above T c is a major challenge for all unconventional superconductors. The molecular A3C60 fulleride superconductors have a parent antiferromagnetic insulator in common with the atom-based cuprates, but here, the C60 (3-) electronic structure controls the geometry and spin state of the structural building unit via the on-molecule Jahn-Teller effect. We identify the Jahn-Teller metal as a fluctuating microscopically heterogeneous coexistence of both localized Jahn-Teller-active and itinerant electrons that connects the insulating and superconducting states of fullerides. The balance between these molecular and extended lattice features of the electrons at the Fermi level gives a dome-shaped variation of T c with interfulleride separation, demonstrating molecular electronic structure control of superconductivity.
RESUMEN
The alkali fullerides, A(3)C(60) (A = alkali metal) are molecular superconductors that undergo a transition to a magnetic Mott-insulating state at large lattice parameters. However, although the size and the symmetry of the superconducting gap, Δ, are both crucial for the understanding of the pairing mechanism, they are currently unknown for superconducting fullerides close to the correlation-driven magnetic insulator. Here we report a comprehensive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study of face-centred-cubic (f.c.c.) Cs(3)C(60) polymorph, which can be tuned continuously through the bandwidth-controlled Mott insulator-metal/superconductor transition by pressure. When superconductivity emerges from the insulating state at large interfullerene separations upon compression, we observe an isotropic (s-wave) Δ with a large gap-to-superconducting transition temperature ratio, 2Δ0/k(B)T(c) = 5.3(2) [Δ0 = Δ(0 K)]. 2Δ0/k(B)T(c) decreases continuously upon pressurization until it approaches a value of ~3.5, characteristic of weak-coupling BCS theory of superconductivity despite the dome-shaped dependence of Tc on interfullerene separation. The results indicate the importance of the electronic correlations for the pairing interaction as the metal/superconductor-insulator boundary is approached.
RESUMEN
The body-centered cubic A15-structured cesium fulleride Cs3C60 is not superconducting at ambient pressure and is free from disorder, unlike the well-studied face-centered cubic A3C60 alkali metal fulleride superconductors. We found that in Cs3C60, where the molecular valences are precisely assigned, the superconducting state at 38 kelvin emerges directly from a localized electron antiferromagnetic insulating state with the application of pressure. This transition maintains the threefold degeneracy of the active orbitals in both competing electronic states; it is thus a purely electronic transition to a superconducting state, with a dependence of the transition temperature on pressure-induced changes of anion packing density that is not explicable by Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory.
RESUMEN
The observed huge increase in the width of the (3C)NMR spectra of TDAE-C(0 )n the middle of the ferromagnetic phase at 10 K is due to a Jahn-Teller distortion of the C(60 )(-) which becomes visible in view of the resulting changes in the Fermi contact electron-(13)C NMR shifts. The shape of the (13)C spectra allows for a direct determination of the belt-like redistribution of the unpaired electron spin density on the C(60)(-) ions, which is responsible for the relatively high ferromagnetic transition temperature in this purely organic system.