Upper critical field reaches 90 tesla near the Mott transition in fulleride superconductors.

Kasahara, Y; Takeuchi, Y; Zadik, R H; Takabayashi, Y; Colman, R H; McDonald, R D; Rosseinsky, M J; Prassides, K et al. · Nat Commun · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Controlled access to the border of the Mott insulating state by variation of control parameters offers exotic electronic states such as anomalous and possibly high-transition-temperature (T<sub>c</sub>) superconductivity. The alkali-doped fullerides show a transition from a Mott insulator to a superconductor for the first time in three-dimensional materials, but the impact of dimensionality and electron correlation on superconducting properties has remained unclear. Here we show that, near the Mott insulating phase, the upper critical field H<sub>c2</sub> of the fulleride superconductors reaches values as high as ∼90 T-the highest among cubic crystals. This is accompanied by a crossover from weak- to strong-coupling superconductivity and appears upon entering the metallic state with the dynamical Jahn-Teller effect as the Mott transition is approached. These results suggest that the cooperative interplay between molecular electronic structure and strong electron correlations plays a key role in realizing robust superconductivity with high-T<sub>c</sub> and high-H<sub>c2</sub>.