Superconductivity in LaBi₃with AuCu₃-type structure

Abstract

We succeeded in synthesizing a new intermetallic compound with a AuCu3-type structure, LaBi3, by utilizing a high-pressure technique. Reacting Bi and LaBi at 450 °C under a pressure of 3.4 GPa resulted in the crystallization of LaBi3 with an a-axis lattice parameter of Sharp superconducting transitions were observed in both its magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity at 7.3–7.4 K. The upper critical field and Ginzburg–Landau coherence length ξ0 were estimated to be 1.70 T and 139 Å, respectively. The superconducting transition temperature Tc was found to decrease linearly with increasing applied pressure with a slope of −0.26 K GPa−1. Band structure calculations indicated that this compound has a multiband nature and that its Fermi energy is located exactly at one of the peak density of states.