Pressure-Induced Superconductivity in Antiferromagnet CePd₅Al₂

Abstract

A layered compound CePd₅Al₂, which is an analog of a heavy fermion superconductor NpPd₅Al₂, is found to be an antiferromagnet with an easy-axis along the tetragonal [001] direction but becomes superconductive in the pressure region from 9 to 12 GPa, with the superconducting transition temperature, T_sc=0.57 K and the upper critical field at 0 K, H_c2(0)=2.5 kOe, at 10.8 GPa. The quasi-two dimensional Fermi surfaces are also theoretically calculated for CePd₅Al₂ on the basis of the 4f-itinerant band model.