Physiea C 235-240 (1994) 2533-2534 North-Holland

PHYSICA

M a g n e t i z a t i o n , U p p e r Critical Field, a n d I s o t r o p y in S i n g l e C r y s t a l s YNi2B2C

Ming Xu, B. K. Cho, P. C. Canfield, D. K. Finnemore, and D. C. Johnston

Ames Laboratory, U. S. Department of Energy and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3020, U. S. A.

D. E. Farrell
Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, U. S. A.

Received 15 May 1994

Magnetization studies for single crystal YNi2B2C have been carried out in order to look for anisotropy in the upper critical field, Hc2. Magnetization vs. temperature curves are reversible to a few percent over a wide portion of the field-temperature (H-T) plane and are nearly linear as predicted by Ginztmrg-Landau theory. Values of H a derived from a linear extrapolation of M vs. T plots for H parallel to the c-axis and for H parallel to the ab-plane are the same within errors and hence the samples are very isotropic. Two irregularities for these samples are that the slope of the M vs. T curves decreases with increasing field and that the Hc2 vs. T curve may have a small positive curvature. Both of these features are contrary to the expectations of Ginzburg-Laudau theory. a few percent. The thermodynamic critical field curve, Hc vs. T, was similar to classic superconductors and the upper critical field, Hc2 vs. T, was roughly linear for the fields up to 2 T.

Because superconductor YNi2B2C contains alternating layers of Ni2B 2 and YC sheets [1], there is a reasonable expectation that the superconducting properties might be anisotropic. Energy band calculations [2], however, have shown that the transpc, rt properties will be rather isotropic despite the appearance of anisotropy in the crystal structure. The purpose of this work is to study the magnetization, M(H,T), of two different rather large single crystals to see whether the b e h a v i o r is similar to other classic superconductors and to look for anisotropy in the upper critical field, Hc2. Single crystals of YNi2B2C as large as 20 mg can be grown out of a Ni2 B flux with transition widths as small as ATc = 0.5 K under the applied field of 2 0 e . A preliminary series of for H parallel to the c-axis as well as the details of the experimental methods have been reported previously [3]. This earlier study of M(H,T) showed that there was a large region of the H-T plane where the magnetization was thermodynamically reversible to an accuracy u,^'

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T(tQ Figure 1 Reversible M vs. T data in a 1.96 mg crystal for the field parallel to the ab-plane. Data taken at 0.5 T intervals from 0.5 T to 2.0 T.

0921-4534D4/$07.00 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. SSDI 0921-4534(94)01832-4

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M. Xu et al./Physica C 235-240 (1994) 2533-2534

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T(IO Figure 2 Hc2(T) data determined by M vs. T plots in a 14.0 mg crystal. The inset shown Hc2 near Tc. Magnetization data for a 1.96 mg single crystal for H parallel to the ab-plane is shown in Fig. 1. Both field cooling and zero field cooling data are shown at each point so it can be seen that the data are reversible within a few percent over this range, the data are fairly linear in T as predicted by Ginzburg-Landau theory (GL), the slope of the M vs. T data gradually decreases as the field increases. In this respect the data differ from the GL theory. There is a small paramagnetic background signal in the normal state that is subtracted from the total before further analysis. Values of Hc2 are determined by a linear extrapolation of the M vs. T data to M = 0. A plot of these Hc2 data for both H parallel the c-axis and the ab-plane for temperatures down to 4 K are shown in Fig. 2. Within the eccuracy of the data, Hc2 is the same for the two directions. To see the details a bit more clearly, M vs. T data for both directions are plotted together in Fig. 3, so that the details of c u r v a t u r e and the extrapolation can be examined. A careful look at Fig. 2 shows a small positive curvature to the i ic2 VS. T plot, contrary to the predictions of Werthamer et al. [4]. As more perfect crystals are studied, this curvature may be worthy of further study.

Trio Figure 3 Reversible M vs. T data in the 1.96 mg cD'stal at the fields of 1 and 2 T. The solid circles and triangles are for the field parallel to the ab-plane; the open circles and triangles are for the field parallel to the c-axis. In conclusion, I-Ic2 has been shown to be isotropic for two different YNi2B2C crystals. The data are consistent with the values of Hc2 determined from torque measurements [5] and tend to confirm the predictions of energy band calculations for the transport properties of the iso-structural LuNi2B2C [1,2]. Acknowledgments Ames Laboratory is operated for the U. S. Department of Energy by Iowa State University under Contract No. W-7405-ENG82. This work was supported by the Director for Energy Research, the Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Work at Case Western Reserve University is done under NSF contract No. DMR 93-07581. REFERENCES 1. T. Siegrist, et al., Nature 367 (1994) 254. 2. W. E. Pickett and D. J. Singh, Phys. Rev. Lett., in press (1994). 3. M. Xu, et al., Physica C, in press, (1994). 4. N. R. Werthamer, E. Helfand, and P. C. Hohenberg, Phys. Rev. 147 (1966) 295. 5. D. E. Farrell, ( to be published).