Effect of Pressure and Magnetic Field on the Superconducting State of a Heavy Fermion Superconductor NpPd5Al2

Abstract

We have carried out the electrical resistivity measurements under high pressures and high magnetic fields in NpPd 5 Al 2 in order to investigate a quantum critical behavior and the stability of the superconducting phase. A T -linear dependence of the electrical resistivity is changed into the Fermi liquid relation of ρ∼ A T 2 under the magnetic fields, and A value indicates a divergent feature around the upper critical field H c2 , indicating the existence of a field-tuned quantum critical point (QCP) around H c2 . With increasing pressure, the superconducting transition temperature T sc decreases and becomes zero above 5.7 GPa, together with a decrease of the upper critical field, indicating that the electronic state of NpPd 5 Al 2 is located in the vicinity of QCP at ambient pressure and deviates from QCP with increasing pressure. Furthermore, we have constructed the superconducting phase diagram at 3.71 GPa.