2001/07/31 by S. I. Schlachter, W. H. Fietz, K. Grube +1
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.supr-con
published as Advances in Cryogenic Engineering: Proceedings of the International Cryogenic Materials Conference - ICMC, Vol. 48 (2002) 809 · 8 pages, 7 figures, minor corrections added. Accepted for publication in 'Advances in Cryogenic Engeneering' (proceedings of ICMC'01, Madison July 16-20, 2001)
arxiv created 2001/08/27 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
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.