High pressure growth and electron transport properties of superconducting SmFeAsO1−xHx single crystals

Abstract

We report the single crystal growth and characterization of the highest Tc iron-based superconductor SmFeAsO1−xHx. Some sub-millimeter-sized crystals were grown using the mixture flux of Na3As + 3NaH + As at 3.0 GPa and 1473 K. The chemical composition analyses confirmed 10% substitution of hydrogen for the oxygen site (x = 0.10), however, the structural analyses suggested that the obtained crystal forms a multi-domain structure. By using the FIB technique we fabricated the single domain SmFeAsO0.9H0.10 crystal with the Tc of 42 K, and revealed the metallic conduction in in-plane (ρab), while semiconducting in the out-of-plane (ρc). From the in-plane Hall coefficient measurements, we confirmed that the dominant carrier of SmFeAsO0.9H0.10 crystal is an electron, and the hydride ion occupied at the site of the oxygen ion effectively supplies a carrier electron per iron following the equation: O2− → H− + e−.