Superconducting and magneto-transport properties of BiS2 based superconductor PrO1-xFxBiS2 (x = 0 to 0.9)

Abstract

We report superconducting properties of PrO1-xFxBiS2 compounds, synthesized by the vacuum encapsulation technique. The synthesized PrO1-xFxBiS2 (x=0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9) samples are crystallized in a tetragonal P4/nmm space group. Both transport and DC magnetic susceptibility measurements showed bulk superconductivity below 4 K. The maximum Tc is obtained for x = 0.7 sample. Under applied magnetic field both Tc onset and Tc (R =0) decrease to lower temperatures. We estimated highest upper critical field [Hc2(0)] for PrO0.3F0.7BiS2 sample to be above 4 T (Tesla). The thermally activated flux flow (TAFF) activation energy (U0) is estimated 54.63 meV in 0.05 Tesla field for PrO0.3F0.7BiS2 sample. Hall measurement results showed that electron charge carriers are the dominating ones in these compounds. Thermoelectric effects (Thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient) data suggest strong electron-electron correlations in this material.