The specific heat of the layered organic superconductor -BEDT-TTF 2 CuNCS 2 , where BEDT-TTF is bisethylenedithio-tetrathiafulvalene, has been studied in magnetic fields up to 28 T applied perpendicular and parallel to the superconducting layers. In parallel fields above 21 T, the superconducting transition becomes first order, which signals that the Pauli-limiting field is reached. Instead of saturating at this field value, the upper-critical-field increases sharply and a second first-order transition line appears within the superconducting phase. Our results give strong evidence that the phase, which separates the homogeneous superconducting state from the normal state is a realization of a Fulde-Ferrell-LarkinOvchinnikov state.

The realization of superconductivity at the interface between a topological insulator and an iron-chalcogenide compound is highly attractive for exploring several recent theoretical predictions involving these two new classes of materials. Here we report transport measurements on a Bi 2 Te 3 /FeTe heterostructure fabricated via van der Waals epitaxy, which demonstrate superconductivity at the interface, which is induced by the Bi 2 Te 3 epilayer with thickness even down to one quintuple layer, though there is no clear-cut evidence that the observed superconductivity is induced by the topological surface states. The two-dimensional nature of the observed superconductivity with the highest transition temperature around 12 K was verified by the existence of a Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition and the diverging ratio of in-plane to out-plane upper critical field on approaching the superconducting transition temperature. With the combination of interface superconductivity and Dirac surface states of Bi 2 Te 3 , the heterostructure studied in this work provides a novel platform for realizing Majorana fermions.

In an attempt to clarify conflicting published data, we report new measurements of specific heat, resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, and thermal expansivity up to room temperature for the 6 K superconductor ZrB 12 , using well-characterized single crystals with a residual resistivity ratio Ͼ9. The specific heat gives the bulk result 2⌬͑0͒ / k B T c = 3.7 for the superconducting gap ratio, and excludes multiple gaps and d-wave symmetry for the Cooper pairs. The Sommerfeld constant ␥ n = 0.34 mJ K −2 gat −1 and the magnetic susceptibility = −2.1 ϫ 10 −5 indicate a low density of states at the Fermi level. The Debye temperature D is in the range 1000-1200 K near zero and room temperature, but decreases by a factor of ϳ2 at ϳ35 K. The specific heat and resistivity curves are inverted to yield approximations of the phonon density of states F͑͒ and the spectral electron-phonon scattering function ␣ tr 2 F͑͒, respectively. Both unveil a 15 meV mode, attributed to Zr vibrations in oversized B cages, which gives rise to electron-phonon coupling. The thermal expansivity further shows that this mode is anharmonic, while the vanishingly small discontinuity at T c establishes that the cell volume is nearly optimal with respect to T c .

Abstract. We report on magnetic susceptibility and specific heat measurements of the cubic helimagnet FeGe in external magnetic fields and temperatures near the onset of long-range magnetic order at T C = 278.2(3) K. Pronounced anomalies in the field-dependent χac(H) data as well as in the corresponding imaginary part χ ac (H) reveal a precursor region around T C in the magnetic phase diagram. The occurrence of a maximum at T 0 = 279.6 K in the zero-field specific heat data indicates a second order transition into a magnetically ordered state. A shoulder evolves above this maximum as a magnetic field is applied. The field dependence of both features coincides with crossover lines from the field-polarized to the paramagnetic state deduced from χac(T ) at constant magnetic fields. The experimental findings are analyzed within the standard Dzyaloshinskii theory for cubic helimagnets. The remarkable multiplicity of modulated precursor states and the complexity of the magnetic phase diagram near the magnetic ordering are explained by the change of the character of solitonic inter-core interactions and the onset of specific confined chiral modulations in this area.