Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen
TT 62: Superconductivity: Properties, Electronic Structure, Order Parameter
TT 62.2: Talk
Thursday, March 14, 2013, 15:15–15:30, H19
Superconducting properties of the filled skutterudite LaPt4Ge12 probed by thermal conductivity — •Heike Pfau, Ulrike Stockert, Roman Gumeniuk, Walter Schnelle, Helge Rosner, Michael Nicklas, Andreas Leithe-Jasper, Yuri Grin, and Frank Steglich — MPI for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Filled skutterudites have attracted much interest due to a remarkable variety of physical properties and ground states. Particular interest has been paid to the superconductors, which range from conventional BCS over multiband to unconventional types.
In this contribution we present results on the filled skutterudite LaPt4Ge12, which becomes superconducting below Tc = 8.3 K with a critical field of Hc20 = 1.6 T. While for its Pr-counterpart an unconventional and/or a multiband coupling mechanism is discussed, NMR and photoemission measurements on the La-compound suggest conventional s-wave superconductivity. However, results on the series LaxPr1−xPt4Ge12 indicate compatible order parameters for the two stoichiometric end-compounds. As a complementary and very sensitive probe of the order parameter, we performed temperature and field dependent thermal conductivity measurements on LaPt4Ge12 down to temperatures below 100 mK. Our results do not show a typical s-wave behaviour, but point towards a more complex gap structure, which will be discussed in the context of previous results on both, LaPt4Ge12 and PrPt4Ge12.