Study on Superconducting Properties of Heavy-Fermion CeIrIn5 Thin Films grown via Pulsed Laser Deposition

Abstract

Herein, we report CeIrIn5 thin-film growth on a MgF2 (001) substrate using pulsed laser deposition technique. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the thin films were either mainly a-axis-oriented (TF1) or a combination of a- and c-axis-oriented (TF2). The characteristic features of Kondo coherence temperature (Tcoh) and superconductivity (Tc) were clearly observed, where onset of Tc is 0.58 and 0.52 K, and Tcoh = 41 K and 37 K for TF1 and TF2, respectively. The temperature dependencies of the upper critical field (Hc2) of both thin films and the bulk CeIrIn5 single crystal revealed a scaling behavior, indicating that the nature of unconventional superconductivity has not been changed in the thin film. The successful synthesis of CeIrIn5 thin films is expected to open a new avenue for novel quantum phases that may have been difficult to explore in the bulk crystalline samples.