Transport properties and anisotropy in rare-earth doped CaFe2As2 single crystals with Tc above 40 K

In this paper we report the superconductivity above 40 K in the electron doping single crystals Ca1-xRxFe2As2 (R = La, Ce, Pr). The x-ray diffraction patterns indicate high crystalline quality and c-axis orientation. The resistivity anomaly in the parent compound CaFe2As2 is completely suppressed by partial replacement of Ca with rare-earth elements and the superconducting transition reaches as high as 46 K, which is higher than the value in electron doping FeAs-122 compounds formed by substituting Fe ions with transition metal, and even surpasses the highest value observed in hole doping systems with a transition temperature up to 38 K. The upper critical fields have been determined with the magnetic field along the ab-plane and c-axis, yielding an anisotropy of 2-3. Hall effect measurements indicate that the conduction in this material is dominated by electron-like charge carriers. Our results confirm the feasibility of inducing superconductivity in Ca122 compounds via electron doping using aliovalent rare-earth substitution into the alkaline earth site, which should add more ingredients to the underlying physics of the iron-based superconductors.