Pressure effect on competition between charge density wave and superconductivity in ZrTe3:: Appearance of pressure-induced reentrant superconductivity -: art. no. 132508

We report on an intricate competition between charge density wave (CDW) formation and superconductivity under pressure up to 11 GPa in the low-dimensional conductor ZrTe3. As pressure increases, the CDW transition temperature T-CDW initially increases, then begins to decrease at 2 GPa and abruptly disappears near 5 GPa. On the other hand, while the superconducting transition temperature T-C falls to below 1.2 K at similar to 0.5 GPa and is not observed at up to 5 GPa above 2.5 K, a superconducting transition emerges beginning at similar to 5 GPa and T-C increases steeply up to 11 GPa. This is an observation of pressure-induced reentrant superconductivity. The results are discussed in terms of the change in the reduced area of the Fermi surface due to CDW formation.