Pressure-induced semimetal to superconductor transition in a three-dimensional topological material ZrTe5

Understand

As a new type of topological materials, ZrTe5 shows many exotic properties under extreme conditions.

• Utilizing resistance and ac magnetic susceptibility measurements under high pressure, while the resistance anomaly near 128 K is completely suppressed at 6.2 GPa, a fully superconducting transition emerges surprisingly.
• The superconducting transition temperature Tc increases with applied pressure, and reaches a maximum of 4.0 K at 14.6 GPa, followed by a slight drop but remaining almost constant value up to 68.5 GPa.
• At pressures above 21.2 GPa, a second superconducting phase with the maximum Tc of about 6.0 K appears and coexists with the original one to the maximum pressure studied in this work.