title: Superconductivity in Weyl semimetal candidate MoTe2.
abstract: Transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted research interest over the last few decades due to their interesting structural chemistry, unusual electronic properties, rich intercalation chemistry and wide spectrum of potential applications. Despite the fact that the majority of related research focuses on semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides (for example, MoS2), recently discovered unexpected properties of WTe2 are provoking strong interest in semimetallic transition metal dichalcogenides featuring large magnetoresistance, pressure-driven superconductivity and Weyl semimetal states. We investigate the sister compound of WTe2, MoTe2, predicted to be a Weyl semimetal and a quantum spin Hall insulator in bulk and monolayer form, respectively. We find that bulk MoTe2 exhibits superconductivity with a transition temperature of 0.10 K. Application of external pressure dramatically enhances the transition temperature up to maximum value of 8.2 K at 11.7 GPa. The observed dome-shaped superconductivity phase diagram provides insights into the interplay between superconductivity and topological physics.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Yanpeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Pavel G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Naumov
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
authors.forename: Mazhar N
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1129-6105
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Catherine R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Rajamathi
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schnelle
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6828-1871
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Barkalov
authors.affiliation: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, 38043 Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hanfland
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Shu-Chun
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Chandra
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shekhar
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Vicky
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Süß
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Schwarz
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany.
authors.forename: Eckhard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pippel
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Werner
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany.
authors.forename: Reinald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hillebrand
authors.affiliation: Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD-EMFL), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, 01328 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Förster
authors.affiliation: Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD-EMFL), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, 01328 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7159-8578
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kampert
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany.
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parkin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Cava
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Felser
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.|Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Binghai
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2164-5839
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Nöthnitzer Straße 40, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Sergey A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Medvedev
mesh_terms: D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004581:Electronics; D004583:Electrons; D008982:Molybdenum / Q000737:chemistry*; D011312:Pressure; D011789:Quantum Theory; D000072176:Superconductivity; D013691:Tellurium / Q000737:chemistry*; D044366:Transition Temperature
chemical_list: C088876:molybdenum telluride; D008982:Molybdenum; D013691:Tellurium