Pressure-enhanced superconductivity in VN with coexistence of weakly interacting spin fluctuations
Phys. Rev. B 113, 054511 – Published 13 February, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/dqyr-pbnr
Abstract
As an important member of metal nitrides, the rocksalt vanadium nitride (VN) shows an unusual coexistence of superconductivity and spin fluctuation, which provides a rare case for study of the interplay between these two exotic phenomena. However, due to the challenging sample synthesis its superconductive and magnetic properties have been sparsely explored, leading to many contradictory reports. Here we present a systematic study of VN based on high-quality single-crystal samples synthesized by a high-pressure method. Our results reveal that the material is a phonon-mediated type-II superconductor and exhibits weak magnetic response as potentially manifested by spin fluctuation that interacts weakly with superconductivity. Pressure enhances the electron-phonon coupling while it suppresses spin fluctuation, largely promoting its superconducting transition temperature () from 7.8 K at ambient pressure up to 12.8 K at with a 64% increase. The discovery of this work offers insights into how the superconductivity can be influenced by spin fluctuation.
