Significant enhancement of superconductivity under Hydrostatic pressure in CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 superconductor

• Superconductivity of BiS2 based CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 new superconductor.
• Impact of hydrostatic pressure on superconductivity.
• Fourfold increase in Tc from 2 K to 8 K with just above 1.35 GPa pressure.
• Very strong electron correlations in the studied CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 superconductor.

We report the effect of hydrostatic pressure (0–1.97 GPa) on the superconductivity of BiS2 based CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 compound. The CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 superconductor was synthesized by the solid state reaction route and the compound is crystallized in tetragonal P4/nmm space group. The studied compound shows superconductivity with transition temperature of 2.5 K (Tconset) at ambient pressure, which has been enhanced to 8 K at applied pressure of 1.97 GPa. The observed normal resistivity exhibited semiconducting behavior. The data of normal state resistivity ρ(T) has been fitted by activation type equation and it is found that the energy gap is significantly reduced with pressure. Resistivity measurements under magnetic field for the highest applied pressure of 1.97 GPa (Tconset=8 K) exhibits the upper critical field of above 5 T. The observation of fourfold increase in Tc accompanied with improved normal state conduction under hydrostatic pressure on CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 superconductor calls for the attention of solid state physics community.