Phys. Rev. B 78, 134516 (2008) [8 pages]Indications for intrinsic superconductivity in highly oriented pyrolytic graphiteReceived 27 May 2008; published 14 October 2008 High-resolution magnetoresistance data in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite thin samples manifest nonhomogenous superconductivity with critical temperature Tc∼25 K and higher temperature. Our claim is based mainly in the observation of anomalous hysteresis loops of resistance versus magnetic field that cannot be assigned to magnetic irreversibility but indicates the existence of Josephson-coupled superconducting grains. In addition we observe quantum resonances that can be assigned to Andreev reflections and the absence of Schubnikov de Haas oscillations. The results indicate that graphite is a system with nonpercolative superconducting domains immersed in a semiconductinglike matrix. As possible origin of the superconductivity in graphite we discuss interior-gap superconductivity when two very different type of carriers with different masses are present. © 2008 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.134516
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.78.134516
PACS:
74.10.+v, 74.45.+c, 74.78.Na
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