High Pressure Studies of Tc and Lattice Parameters of MgB2

Abstract

We performed ac-susceptibility measurements of magnesium diboride powder samples under pure hydrostatic pressures up to 0.4 GPa and under quasi-hydrostatic pressure conditions up to 8 GPa in a helium gas pressure cell and a diamond-anvil cell (DAC), respectively. Furthermore, the DAC has been used to investigate the lattice compression by X-ray diffraction. Under helium gas pressure the superconducting transition temperature shows a linear decrease dTc/dp = -1.13 K/GPa. The pressure effect is fully reversible with a return to the initial Tc of 37.5 K after pressure release. In the diamond-anvil cell the application of pressure leads to a stronger Tc-decrease than in the helium gas pressure cell, and after the release of pressure a degradation effect with lower Tc and a broader transition compared to the first measurement at ambient pressure occurs. Such degradation may be explained by shear stresses and uniaxial pressure components, which cannot be avoided in a DAC at low temperatures. Considering the anisotropic AlB2-type structure with alternating honeycomb boron and magnesium layers, MgB2 seems to be very sensitive to such non-hydrostatic pressure components, which would explain the spread of dTc/dp values reported in the literature.