Magnetic fluctuations in Pb9Cu(PO4)6O

The hope that copper-doped lead apatite Pb9Cu(PO4)6O is a room-temperature superconductor has largely been dashed by global research efforts. Nevertheless, the material has interesting magnetic properties, and research groups around the world have prepared high-quality samples. We use a fluctuation exchange (FLEX) approximation approach to study the magnetic tendencies in Pb9Cu(PO4)6O. We find ferromagnetic (FM) fluctuations very close to the filling of the stoichiometric compound which can be understood from Fermi surface nesting at the M point. This is like the one-band triangular lattice Hamiltonian at 34 filling. Interestingly, the special kz dependence of the Pb9Cu(PO4)6O band structure makes it very sensitive to doping. Only slight charge doping switches between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic fluctuations. If the material could become superconducting, it might be easily switchable between singlet and triplet superconductivity.