Electronic Structure of Novel Non-centrosymmetric Superconductor Mg2Rh3P

Abstract

We calculated the electronic structure of a novel non-centrosymmetric superconductor Mg2-xRh3P from first-principles. Stoichiometric Mg2Rh3P shows a pseudogap at the Fermi level. This is consistent with the experimental fact that the stoichiometric sample Mg2Rh3P does not show superconductivity and the Mg-deficient sample Mg19Rh3P shows superconductivity with Tc ∼ 3.6 K. The band dispersion of Mg2Rh3P shows a characteristic band splitting due to the anti-symmetric spin-orbit coupling (ASOC). The magnitude of ASOC of Mg2Rh3P is comparable to Li2Pd3B. We also show that its 5d-counterpart Mg2Ir3P may have quite a large ASOC, and is a good candidate of parity-mixed superconductor likewise Li2Pd3B.