Study of the effect of Ni substitution and external pressure in Li2Pd3B superconductor

Abstract Samples belonging to the series Li 2 (Pd 1− x Ni x ) 3 B for x  = 0–0.2 have been synthesized. Phase purity of the samples is established using X-ray diffraction. The lattice parameter decreases with increasing Ni substitution. The superconducting transition temperature, T c , exhibits a decrease with increasing Ni concentration. On the application of external pressure up to 3 GPa, the onset T c decreases monotonically at a rate d ln  T c /d P of ∼0.064 GPa −1 . The results are seen to be consistent with the behaviour expected of conventional superconductors.