We report the discovery of superconductivity at 2.3 K in Zr5Sb3, the first superconducting member in the large compound family of the Mn5Si3-structure type. Transport, magnetic, and calorimetric measurements and band structure calculations show it to be a phonon-mediated BCS superconductor, with a relatively large density of states at the Fermi level associated with the d-electrons of Zr and substantially larger electron-phonon coupling compared to the Sn counterpart compound Zr5Sn3. More superconductors with even higher transition temperatures are expected to be found in this family of compounds.
@article{arxiv.1308.4649,
title = {Superconductivity in the Mn5Si3-type Zr5Sb3 system},
author = {B. Lv and X. Y. Zhu and B. Lorenz and F. Y. Wei and Y. Y. Xue and Z. P. Yin and G. Kotliar and C. W. Chu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.4649},
year = {2013}
}