Scotch tape induced strains for enhancing superconductivity of FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) single crystals

摘要

We investigated the superconducting transition temperature T_c of FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) single crystals, which can be enhanced up to 14% by attaching onto a commercial Scotch tape. The Scotch tape exhibits a large cooling shrinkage at low temperatures, which is considerably more pronounced than that of the metallic FeSe_(0.5)Te_(0.5) single crystal, thus providing a compressive strain of 2.4 × 10~(-3) at 15 K. For such strain, we calculated that the lattice parameter of c/a can be increased to ～0.31%, which corresponds to the enhancement of the superconductivity. The present finding provides a rapid and simple method to examine the microstructure sensitive physical properties of the layered-structure materials by using the Scotch tape as strain generator.