Estimation of Superconducting Critical-temperature of Molybdenum as a Function of Pressure

Abstract

Recently, superconductors with high superconducting transition temperatures (\(T_{c}\)) have been observed for their tuning abilities in \(T_{c}\) due to application of ultra high pressure. In the present work, we considered 13 pressure values ranging from ambient (0 GPa) up to the very high pressure of 250 GPa. Electron–phonon coupling constant was estimated and entitled as the main parameter to study the effect of pressure on \(T_{c}\) of molybdenum (Mo) under the density functional perturbation theory. The critical temperature of Mo at 0 GPa was estimated as 1.04 K, which agrees well with previous computational study. Mo element is then subjected to aforementioned range of pressure wherein \(T_c\) first decreased and then increased; this variation in \(T_c\) with pressure justified its tuning ability as well. \(T_{c}\) is first decreased from 1.04 to 0.76 K for modest pressure range of 0–30 GPa and increased from 0.76 to 8.18 K for all other ranges of pressure from 30 to 250 GPa. This anomalous behavior of \(T_c\) is attributed to the irregular decrement and increment behavior of electron–phonon coupling constant and density of states at the Fermi level.