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    High-pressure tuning of distinct superconducting states associated with structural instability in β-ThRhGe

    Gen Li1,2,*, Pengtao Yang2,3,*, Guorui Xiao4,5,*, Chenglin Li2,3, Qingxin Dong2,3, Jianping Sun2,3, Gang Wang2,3, Yoshiya Uwatoko6, Shugang Tan1,† et al.

    Zhi Ren4,5,‡, Bosen Wang2,3,§, and Jinguang Cheng2,3

    • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
    • †Contact author: tanshugang@sdut.edu.cn
    • ‡Contact author: renzhi@westlake.edu.cn
    • §Contact author: bswang@iphy.ac.cn

    Phys. Rev. B 114, 014507 – Published 15 July, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vm92-ybln

    Abstract

    We revisited the high-pressure phase diagram of superconductor β-ThRhGe by measuring electrical resistivity and ac magnetic susceptibility under hydrostatic pressures. In addition to the low-pressure superconducting phase (SC1), our results revealed the emergence of another high-Tc superconducting phase (SC2) at pressures above 1 GPa, which coexists with SC1 and enhances with pressure along with the collapse of orthogonal-monoclinic structural transition near ∼3 GPa. The superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of SC1 increases linearly with a pressure coefficient dTc/dP≈0.69 K/GPa, but the SC2 exhibits a dome-shaped pressure dependence, reaching a maximum value of ∼9.3 K around 6.3 GPa, which is the highest for the reported ternary equiatomic intermetallic compounds. Our results suggest that SC1 and SC2 have significantly different superconducting coupling strengths and effective electron masses, further demonstrating two distinct superconducting states. The analysis of normal-state properties suggests that the enhanced Tc may be related to phonon softening accompanying structural transitions, and/or quantum fluctuations caused by possible structural instability. The evolution of Tc as a function of pressure and the physical mechanism of superconducting states were discussed on comparison to the previous reports in β−ThRh1−xIrxGe.

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