Physical properties of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor Mg10Ir19B16

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Dec 21;99(25):257004. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.257004. Epub 2007 Dec 19.

Abstract

Specific heat, electrical resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility measurements on a high quality sample of Mg10Ir19B16 provide a self-consistent determination of its superconducting properties. They indicate that Mg10Ir19B16 is a type-II superconductor [T{C}=4.45 K, kappa(0) approximately 20], with an electron-phonon coupling constant lambda{ep}=0.66. An analysis of the T-dependent specific heat shows that superconducting properties are dominated by an s-wave gap (Delta=0.7 meV). Point contact tunneling data provide evidence for multiple superconducting gaps, as expected from strong asymmetric spin-orbit coupling.