Abstract
The discovery1 of superconductivity at high pressure (albeit over a restricted range) in the ferromagnetic material UGe2 raised the possibility that bulk superconductivity might be found in other ferromagnets. The exact symmetry of the paired state and the dominant mechanism responsible for the pairing, however, remain unidentified. Meanwhile, the conjecture that superconductivity could occur more generally in ferromagnets has been fuelled by the recent observation of a low-temperature transition that suggests an onset of superconductivity in high-quality crystals of the itinerant-ferromagnet ZrZn2 (ref. 2), although the thermodynamic signature of this transition could not be detected. Here we show that the ferromagnet URhGe is superconducting at ambient pressure. In this case, we find the thermodynamic signature of the transition—its form is consistent with a superconducting pairing of a spin-triplet type, although further testing with cleaner samples is needed to confirm this. The combination of superconductivity and ferromagnetism may thus be more common and consequently more important than hitherto realized.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Saxena, S. S. et al. Superconductivity on the border of itinerant-electron ferromagnetism in UGe2. Nature 406, 587–592 (2000).
Pfleiderer, C. et al. Coexistence of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in the d-band metal ZrZn2. Nature 412, 58–61 (2001).
de Boer, F. R., Brück, E., Sechovsky, V., Havela, L. & Buschow, K. H. J. UTX compounds in high magnetic fields. Physica B 163, 175–178 (1990).
Tran, V. H., Troć, R. & André, G. Magnetic ordering in URhSi and URhGe. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 186, 81–86 (1998).
Lonzarich, G. G. & Taillefer, L. Effect of spin fluctuations on the magnetic equation of state of ferromagnetic or nearly ferromagnetic metals. J. Phys. C 18, 4339–4371 (1985).
Huxley, A. et al. UGe2: A ferromagnetic spin-triplet superconductor. Phys. Rev. B 63, 144519-1–144519-13 (2001).
Hagmusa, I. H. et al. Magnetic specific heat of a URhGe single crystal. Physica B 281&282, 223–225 (2000).
Tateiwa, N. et al. Pressure-induced superconductivity in a ferromagnet UGe2. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 13, L17–L23 (2001).
Sechovsky, V. & Havela, L. in Handbook of Magnetic Materials (ed. Buschow, K. H. J.) 1–290 (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1998).
Campbell, A. M. The response of pinned flux vortices to low-frequency fields. J. Phys. C 2, 1492–1501 (1969).
Broholm, C. et al. Anisotropic temperature dependence of the magnetic-field penetration in superconducting UPt3. Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 2062–2065 (1990).
Sheikin, I. et al. Anisotropy and pressure dependence of the upper critical field of the ferromagnetic superconductor UGe2. Phys. Rev. B. (in the press).
Luk’yanchuk, I. A. & Mineev, V. P. Diamagnetic limit of superconductivity with triplet pairing. JETP Lett. 44, 233–236 (1986).
Fomin, I. A. Symmetry of the order parameter in the UGe2 superconductor. JETP Lett. 111–114 (2001).
Machida, K. & Ohmi, T. Phenomenological theory of ferromagnetic superconductivity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 850–853 (2001).
Leggett, A. J. A theoretical description of the new phases of liquid 3He. Rev. Mod. Phys. 47, 331–414 (1975).
Hirschfeld, P., Vollhardt, D. & Wöfle, P. Resonant impurity scattering in heavy fermion superconductors. Solid State Commun. 59, 111–115 (1986).
Brison, J. P. et al. Magnetism and superconductivity in heavy fermion systems. J. Low Temp. Phys. 95, 145–152 (1994).
Nishizaki, S., Maeno, Y. & Mao, Z. Effect of impurities on the specific heat of the spin-triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4. J. Low Temp. Phys. 117, 1581–1585 (1999).
Moriya, T. Spin Fluctuations in Itinerant Electron Magnetism (eds Cardora, M., Fulde, P. & Queisser, H. J.) Ch. 4 (Springer, Berlin, 1985).
Acknowledgements
We thank I. Fomin, V.P. Mineev and A. Wills for discussions, and P. Rodière, S. Sosin, R. Calemczuk, P. Lejay and F. Hardy for help in performing some of the reported measurements.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Aoki, D., Huxley, A., Ressouche, E. et al. Coexistence of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in URhGe. Nature 413, 613–616 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35098048
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35098048
This article is cited by
-
Intertype superconductivity in ferromagnetic superconductors
Communications Physics (2023)
-
Itinerant-localized dichotomy in magnetic anisotropic properties of U-based ferromagnets
Scientific Reports (2023)
-
Emergent superconductivity in topological-kagome-magnet/metal heterostructures
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Two-dimensional superconductors with intrinsic p-wave pairing or nontrivial band topology
Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy (2023)
-
Zero-field superconducting diode effect in small-twist-angle trilayer graphene
Nature Physics (2022)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.
