Improved Single-Crystal Growth of Sr2RuO4
by
Jake S. Bobowski 1,2,*
, Naoki Kikugawa 3,*, Takuto Miyoshi 1, Haruki Suwa 1, Han-shu Xu 1,4, Shingo Yonezawa 1, Dmitry A. Sokolov 5, Andrew P. Mackenzie 5 and Yoshiteru Maeno 1,*
Jake S. Bobowski 1,2,*, Naoki Kikugawa 3,*, Takuto Miyoshi 1, Haruki Suwa 1, Han-shu Xu 1,4, Shingo Yonezawa 1, Dmitry A. Sokolov 5, Andrew P. Mackenzie 5 and Yoshiteru Maeno 1,*
1
Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
2
Department of Physics, University of British Colombia, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada
3
National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba 305-0003, Japan
4
Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
5
Max Plank Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, D-01187 Dresden, Germany
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Condens. Matter 2019, 4(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/condmat4010006
Received: 26 November 2018 / Revised: 24 December 2018 / Accepted: 2 January 2019 / Published: 7 January 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Majorana Fermions and Topological Materials Science)
High-quality single crystals are essentially needed for the investigation of the novel bulk properties of unconventional superconductors. The availability of such crystals grown by the floating-zone method has helped to unveil the unconventional superconductivity of the layered perovskite Sr2RuO4, which is considered as a strong candidate of a topological spin-triplet superconductor. Yet, recent progress of investigations urges further efforts to obtain ultimately high-quality crystalline samples. In this paper, we focus on the method of preparation of feed rods for the floating-zone melting and report on the improvements of the crystal growth. We present details of the improved methods used to obtain crystals with superconducting transition temperatures Tc that are consistently as high as 1.4 K, as well as the properties of these crystals.
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Keywords:
Sr2RuO4; superconductivity; single-crystal growth; floating zone; feed rod
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MDPI and ACS Style
Bobowski, J.S.; Kikugawa, N.; Miyoshi, T.; Suwa, H.; Xu, H.-S.; Yonezawa, S.; Sokolov, D.A.; Mackenzie, A.P.; Maeno, Y. Improved Single-Crystal Growth of Sr2RuO4. Condens. Matter 2019, 4, 6.
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