Crystal growth, characterization, and point-contact Andreev-reflection spectroscopy of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor Mo3Al2 C

We report on the first successful growth of single crystals of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor Mo3Al2C obtained by means of a cubic-anvil, high-pressure, and high-temperature technique. Composition, structure, and normal-state transport properties of the crystals were studied by means of x-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility, and resistivity measurements as a function of temperature. Variations in critical temperature (Tc) between 8.6 and 9.3 K were observed, probably due to the slightly different carbon stoichiometry of the samples. Single-crystal x-ray refinement confirmed the high structural perfection of the grown crystals. Remarkably, the refined Flack parameter values for all the measured crystals using a P4132 space-group model were consistently close to either 0 or 1, hence indicating that the considered crystals belong to two enantiomorphic space groups, P4132 and P4332. An anomaly in the resistivity is observed at 130 K, most likely associated with the onset of a charge-density-wave phase. The superconducting properties (and in particular the symmetry, the amplitude, and the temperature dependence of the superconducting gap) were studied by using point contact Andreev-reflection spectroscopy. The results confirm that Mo3Al2C is a moderately strongly-coupled superconductor with 2Delta/kBTc = 4 and unambiguously prove that the order parameter has an s-wave symmetry despite the asymmetric spin-orbit coupling arising from the lack of inversion symmetry.