Data-driven exploration of new pressure-induced superconductivity in PbBi2Te4

• Main Authors: Ryo Matsumoto, Zhufeng Hou, Masanori Nagao, Shintaro Adachi, Hiroshi Hara, Hiromi Tanaka, Kazuki Nakamura, Ryo Murakami, Sayaka Yamamoto, Hiroyuki Takeya, Tetsuo Irifune, Kiyoyuki Terakura, Yoshihiko Takano
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2018-12-01
• Series: Science and Technology of Advanced Materials
• Subjects: Data-driven; superconductivity; high-pressure
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14686996.2018.1548885
• ISSN: 1468-6996; 1878-5514

Candidate compounds for new thermoelectric and superconducting materials, which have narrow band gap and flat bands near band edges, were exhaustively searched by the high-throughput first-principles calculation from an inorganic materials database named AtomWork. We focused on PbBi2Te4 which has the similar electronic band structure and the same crystal structure with those of a pressure-induced superconductor SnBi2Se4 explored by the same data-driven approach. The PbBi2Te4 was successfully synthesized as single crystals using a melt and slow cooling method. The core level X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis revealed Pb2+, Bi3+ and Te2- valence states in PbBi2Te4. The thermoelectric properties of the PbBi2Te4 sample were measured at ambient pressure and the electrical resistance was also evaluated under high pressure using a diamond anvil cell with boron-doped diamond electrodes. The resistance decreased with increasing of the pressure, and pressure-induced superconducting transitions were discovered at 2.5 K under 10 GPa. The maximum superconducting transition temperature increased up to 8.4 K at 21.7 GPa. The data-driven approach shows promising power to accelerate the discovery of new thermoelectric and superconducting materials.