Pressure induced superconductivity in MnSe

The rich phenomena in the FeSe and related compounds have attracted great interests as it provides fertile material to gain further insight into the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity. A natural follow-up work was to look into the possibility of superconductivity in MnSe. We demonstrated in this work that high pressure can effectively suppress the complex magnetic characters of MnSe, and induce superconductivity with T_c - 5 K at pressure ~12 GPa confirmed by both magnetic and resistive measurements. The highest T_c is 9 K (magnetic result) at ~35 GPa. Our observations suggest the observed superconductivity may closely relate to the pressure-induced structural change. However, the interface between the metallic and insulating boundaries may also play an important role to the pressure induced superconductivity in MnSe.

T. L. Hung, C. H. Huang, L. Z. Deng, M. N. Ou, Y. Y. Chen, M. K. Wu, S. Y. Huyan, C. W. Chu, P. J. Chen, T. K. Lee