Composite pressure cell for pulsed magnets.

Extreme pressures and high magnetic fields can affect materials in profound and fascinating ways. However, large pressures and fields are often mutually incompatible; the rapidly changing fields provided by pulsed magnets induce eddy currents in the metallic components used in conventional pressure cells, causing serious heating, forces, and vibration. Here, we report a diamond-anvil-cell made mainly out of insulating composites that minimizes inductive heating while retaining sufficient strength to apply pressures of up to 8 GPa.

Non-monotonic pressure dependence of high-field nematicity and magnetism in CeRhIn.

CeRhIn provides a textbook example of quantum criticality in a heavy fermion system: Pressure suppresses local-moment antiferromagnetic (AFM) order and induces superconductivity in a dome around the associated quantum critical point (QCP) near p ≈ 23 kbar. Strong magnetic fields also suppress the AFM order at a field-induced QCP at B ≈ 50 T. In its vicinity, a nematic phase at B ≈ 28 T characterized by a large in-plane resistivity anisotropy emerges.

Superconducting phase diagram of HS under high magnetic fields.

The discovery of superconductivity at 260 K in hydrogen-rich compounds like LaH re-invigorated the quest for room temperature superconductivity. Here, we report the temperature dependence of the upper critical fields μH(T) of superconducting HS under a record-high combination of applied pressures up to 160 GPa and fields up to 65 T. We find that H(T) displays a linear dependence on temperature over an extended range as found in multigap or in strongly-coupled superconductors, thus deviating from conventional Werthamer, Helfand, and Hohenberg (WHH) formalism.

Fiber Bragg Grating Dilatometry in Extreme Magnetic Field and Cryogenic Conditions.

In this work, we review single mode SiO₂ fiber Bragg grating techniques for dilatometry studies of small single-crystalline samples in the extreme environments of very high, continuous, and pulsed magnetic fields of up to 150 T and at cryogenic temperatures down to <1 K. Distinct millimeter-long materials are measured as part of the technique development, including metallic, insulating, and radioactive compounds. Experimental strategies are discussed for the observation and analysis of the related thermal expansion and magnetostriction of materials, which can achieve a strain sensitivity () as low as a few parts in one hundred million (≈10).

Rhenium diboride's monocrystal elastic constants, 308 to 5 K.

The five independent moduli required to construct the complete monocrystal elastic modulus tensor of the hexagonal-symmetry superhard compound ReB(2) were measured from 308 to 5 K using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy on a special-texture polycrystal. This is possible because, confirmed by X-ray diffraction, the specimen measured was composed of grains with hexagonal axes parallel so that its polycrystal elastic response is identical to a monocrystal and because hexagonal-symmetry solids are elastically isotropic in the plane perpendicular to the hexagonal axis. Along the hexagonal (c) axis, C(33) (0) = 1021 GPa, nearly equal to C(11) of diamond, and consistent with the superhard properties.

Signature of optimal doping in Hall-effect measurements on a high-temperature superconductor.

High-temperature superconductivity is achieved by doping copper oxide insulators with charge carriers. The density of carriers in conducting materials can be determined from measurements of the Hall voltage--the voltage transverse to the flow of the electrical current that is proportional to an applied magnetic field. In common metals, this proportionality (the Hall coefficient) is robustly temperature independent.