The Heusler compound ScInAu2 was previously reported to have a superconducting ground state with a critical temperature of 3.0 K. Recent high throughput calculations have also predicted that the material harbors a topologically non-trivial band structure similar to that reported for beta-PdBi2. In an effort to explore the interplay between the superconducting and topological properties properties, electrical resistance, magnetization, and x-ray diffraction measurements were performed on polycrystalline ScInAu2. The data reveal that high-quality polycrystalline samples lack the super-conducting transition present samples that have not been annealed. These results indicate the earlier reported superconductivity is non-intrinsic. Several compounds in the Au-In-Sc ternary phase space (ScAu2, ScIn3, and ScInAu2) were explored in an attempt to identify the secondary phase responsible for the non-intrinsic superconductivity. The results suggest that elemental In is responsible for the reported superconductivity in ScInAu2.
@article{arxiv.2012.06501,
title = {Absence of superconductivity in topological metal ScInAu$_2$},
author = {J. M. DeStefano and G. P. Marciaga and J. B. Flahavan and U. S. Shah and T. A. Elmslie and M. W. Meisel and J. J. Hamlin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.06501},
year = {2021}
}