Evidence for unconventional strong-coupling superconductivity in PrOs4Sb12: an Sb nuclear quadrupole resonance study.
We report Sb-NQR results which evidence a heavy-fermion (HF) behavior and an unconventional superconducting (SC) property in Pr(Os4Sb12 with T(c)=1.85 K. The temperature (T) dependence of nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation rate, 1/T(1), and NQR frequency unravel a low-lying crystal-electric-field splitting below T0 approximately 10 K, associated with Pr3+(4f(2))-derived ground state. In the SC state, 1/T(1) shows neither a coherence peak just below T(c) K nor a T3-like power-law behavior observed for anisotropic HF superconductors with the line-node gap. The isotropic energy gap with its size Delta/k(B)=4.8 K seems to open up across T(c) below T(*) approximately 2.3 K. It is surprising that Pr(Os4Sb12 looks like an isotropic HF superconductor-it may indeed argue for Cooper pairing via quadrupolar fluctuations.
Kotegawa
H
H
Department of Physical Science, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan.
Yogi
M
M
Imamura
Y
Y
Kawasaki
Y
Y
Zheng
G-Q
GQ
Kitaoka
Y
Y
Ohsaki
S
S
Sugawara
H
H
Aoki
Y
Y
Sato
H
H