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Superconductivity in alkali-metal-doped picene

Nature volume 464, pages 76–79 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Efforts to identify and develop new superconducting materials continue apace, motivated by both fundamental science and the prospects for application. For example, several new superconducting material systems have been developed in the recent past, including calcium-intercalated graphite compounds1, boron-doped diamond2 and—most prominently—iron arsenides such as LaO1–xF x FeAs (ref. 3). In the case of organic superconductors, however, no new material system with a high superconducting transition temperature (Tc) has been discovered in the past decade. Here we report that intercalating an alkali metal into picene, a wide-bandgap semiconducting solid hydrocarbon, produces metallic behaviour and superconductivity. Solid potassium-intercalated picene (K x picene) shows Tc values of 7 K and 18 K, depending on the metal content. The drop of magnetization in K x picene solids at the transition temperature is sharp (<2 K), similar to the behaviour of Ca-intercalated graphite1. The Tc of 18 K is comparable to that of K-intercalated C60 (ref. 4). This discovery of superconductivity in K x picene shows that organic hydrocarbons are promising candidates for improved Tc values.

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Figure 1: Molecular structure, crystal structure and physical appearance of picene.
Figure 2: Temperature dependence of M/H.
Figure 3: Superconducting phase diagrams.

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Acknowledgements

The X-ray diffraction patterns were measured with synchrotron radiation at KEK-PF (proposal no. 2007G612), Tsukuba, Japan. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid 20045012 and 18340104 from MEXT, Japan.

Author Contributions R.M., Y.S., Y.Y. and H.M. contributed equally to the preparation of superconducting picene materials and to the performance of magnetic susceptibility measurements with the assistance of T.K. and Y.K.; H.O. and M.Y. synthesized high-quality picene; N.K. and Y.M. provided assistance with X-ray diffraction measurements; N.I. and A.F. provided discussions and suggestions for the overall project, and discussed the experimental data with T.K. and Y.K.; Y.K. was responsible for the overall project direction, planning and integration among different research units.

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Affiliations

  1. Research Laboratory for Surface Science,

    Ryoji Mitsuhashi, Hiroki Mitamura, Naoko Kawasaki & Yoshihiro Kubozono

  2. Department of Physics,

    Yuta Suzuki, Yusuke Yamanari, Takashi Kambe & Naoshi Ikeda

  3. Department of Chemistry, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan

    Hideki Okamoto

  4. Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan

    Hideki Okamoto

  5. Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, 923-1292, Japan

    Akihiko Fujiwara

  6. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Gunma University, Kiryu 376-8515, Japan

    Minoru Yamaji

  7. Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji 192-0397, Japan

    Yutaka Maniwa

Authors
  1. Ryoji Mitsuhashi
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  2. Yuta Suzuki
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  5. Takashi Kambe
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  8. Akihiko Fujiwara
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  9. Minoru Yamaji
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  10. Naoko Kawasaki
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  11. Yutaka Maniwa
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  12. Yoshihiro Kubozono
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yoshihiro Kubozono.

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Mitsuhashi, R., Suzuki, Y., Yamanari, Y. et al. Superconductivity in alkali-metal-doped picene. Nature 464, 76–79 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08859

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