We report superconductivity in heavily boron-doped bulk silicon carbide related to the diamond structure. The compound exhibits zero resistivity and diamagnetic susceptibility below a critical temperature T c of $1:4 K, and an effective boron doping concentration higher than 10 21 cm À3 . We present the H-T phase diagram of this new superconducting compound determined from AC susceptibility. In finite DC magnetic fields a clear hysteresis was observed between cooling and subsequent warming runs. This indicates, in contrast with the type-II superconductivity in boron-doped diamond and silicon, that a type-I superconductivity with a critical field H c ð0Þ of about 100 Oe is realized in boron-doped SiC. Moreover, the specific-heat shows a clear jump at T c , demonstrating bulk nature of the superconductivity.

The discoveries of superconductivity in the heavily-boron doped semiconductors diamond 1 (C:B) in 2004 and silicon 2 (Si:B) in 2006 have renewed the interest in the physics of the superconducting state of doped semiconductors. Recently, we discovered superconductivity in the closely related "mixed" system heavily boron-doped silcon carbide (SiC:B).3 Interestingly, the latter compound is a type-I superconductor whereas the two aforementioned materials are type-II. In this paper we present an extensive analysis of our recent specific-heat study, as well as the band structure and expected Fermi surfaces. We observe an apparent quadratic temperature dependence of the electronic specific heat in the superconducting state. Possible reasons are a nodal gap structure or a residual density of states due to non-superconducting parts of the sample. The basic superconducting parameters are estimated in a Ginzburg-Landau framework. We compare and discuss our results with those reported for C:B and Si:B. Finally, we comment on possible origins of the difference in the superconductivity of SiC:B compared to the two "parent" materials C:B and Si:B.

The discoveries of superconductivity in heavily boron-doped diamond in 2004 and silicon in 2006 have renewed the interest in the superconducting state of semiconductors. Charge-carrier doping of wide-gap semiconductors leads to a metallic phase from which upon further doping superconductivity can emerge. Recently, we discovered superconductivity in a closely related system: heavily boron-doped silicon carbide. The sample used for that study consisted of cubic and hexagonal SiC phase fractions and hence this led to the question which of them participated in the superconductivity. Here we studied a hexagonal SiC sample, free from cubic SiC phase by means of x-ray diffraction, resistivity, and ac susceptibility.

In 2004 the discovery of superconductivity in heavily boron-doped diamond (C:B) led to an increasing interest in the superconducting phases of wide-gap semiconductors. Subsequently superconductivity was found in heavily boron-doped cubic silicon (Si:B) and recently in the stochiometric "mixture" of heavily boron-doped silicon carbide (SiC:B). The latter system surprisingly exhibits type-I superconductivity in contrast to the type-II superconductors C:B and Si:B. Here we will focus on the specific heat of two different superconducting samples of boron-doped SiC. One of them contains cubic and hexagonal SiC whereas the other consists mainly of hexagonal SiC without any detectable cubic phase fraction. The electronic specific heat in the superconducting state of both samples SiC:B can be described by either assuming a BCS-type exponentional temperature dependence or a power-law behavior.