No Arabic abstract
A theory of the fluctuation-induced Nernst effect is developed for arbitrary magnetic fields and temperatures beyond the upper critical field line in a two-dimensional superconductor. First, we derive a simple phenomenological formula for the Nernst coefficient, which naturally explains the giant Nernst signal due to fluctuating Cooper pairs. The latter is shown to be large even far from the transition and may exceed by orders of magnitude the Fermi liquid terms. We also present a complete microscopic calculation (which includes quantum fluctuations) of the Nernst coefficient and give its asymptotic dependencies in various regions on the phase diagram. It is argued that the magnitude and the behavior of the Nernst signal observed experimentally in disordered superconducting films can be well-understood on the basis of the superconducting fluctuation theory.
We present a new method to study the Nernst effect and diamagetism of an extreme type-II superconductor dominated by phase fluctuations. We work directly with vortex variables and our method allows us to tune vortex parameters (e.g., core energy and number of vortex species). We find that diamagnetic response and transverse thermoelectric conductivity ($alpha_{xy}$) persist well above the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature, and become more pronounced as the vortex core energy is increased. However, they textit{weaken} as the number of internal vortex states are increased. We find that $alpha_{xy}$ closely tracks the magnetization $(-M/T)$ over a wide range of parameters.
Long-range order is destroyed in a superconductor warmed above its critical temperature (Tc). However, amplitude fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter survive and lead to a number of well established phenomena such as paraconductivity : an excess of charge conductivity due to the presence of short-lived Cooper pairs in the normal state. According to an untested theory, these pairs generate a transverse thermoelectric (Nernst) signal. In amorphous superconducting films, the lifetime of Cooper pairs exceeds the elastic lifetime of quasi-particles in a wide temperature range above Tc; consequently, the Cooper pairs Nernst signal dominate the response of the normal electrons well above Tc. In two dimensions, the magnitude of the expected signal depends only on universal constants and the superconducting coherence length, so the theory can be unambiguously tested. Here, we report on the observation of a Nernst signal in such a superconductor traced deep into the normal state. Since the amplitude of this signal is in excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction, the result provides the first unambiguous case for a Nernst effect produced by short-lived Cooper pairs.
Two dimensional topological superconductors (TS) host chiral Majorana modes (MMs) localized at the boundaries. In this work, within quasiclassical approximation we study the effect of disorder on the localization length of MMs in two dimensional spin-orbit (SO) coupled superconductors. We find nonmonotonic behavior of the Majorana localization length as a function of disorder strength. At weak disorder, the Majorana localization length decreases with an increasing disorder strength. Decreasing the disorder scattering time below a critical value $tau_c$, the Majorana localization length starts to increase. The critical scattering time depends on the relative magnitudes of the two ingredients behind TS: SO coupling and exchange field. For dominating SO coupling, $tau_c$ is small and vice versa for the dominating exchange field.
A new type of Kondo effect peculiar to unconventional superconductors is studied theoretically by using the Wilsons numerical renormalization group method. In this case, an angular momentum of a Cooper pair plays an important role in the Kondo effect. It produces multichannel exchange couplings with a local spin. Here we focus on a $p_x +i p_y$-wave state which is a full gap system. The calculated impurity susceptibility shows that the local spin is almost quenched by the Kondo effect in the strong coupling region ($T_{rm K}/Delta to infty$), while the ground state is always a spin doublet over all the $T_{rm K}/Delta$ region. Here $T_{rm K}$ and $Delta$ are the Kondo temperature and the superconducting energy gap, respectively. This is different from the s-wave pairing case where the Kondo singlet is realized for large $T_{rm K}/Delta$ values. The strong coupling analysis shows that the $p_x +i p_y$-wave Cooper pair is connected to the Kondo singlet via the orbital dynamics of the paired electrons, generating the spin of the ground state. This type of Kondo effect reflects the symmetry of the conduction electron system.
Superconductivity arises from two distinct quantum phenomena: electron pairing and long-range phase coherence. In conventional superconductors, the two quantum phenomena generally take place simultaneously, while the electron pairing occurs at higher temperature than the long-range phase coherence in the underdoped high-Tc cuprate superconductors. Recently, whether electron pairing is also prior to long-range phase coherence in single-layer FeSe film on SrTiO3 substrate is under debate. Here, by measuring Knight shift and nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate, we unambiguously reveal a pseudogap behavior below Tp ~ 60 K in two layered FeSe-based superconductors with quasi-two-dimension. In the pseudogap regime, a weak diamagnetic signal and a remarkable Nernst effect are also observed, which indicate that the observed pseudogap behavior is related to superconducting fluctuations. These works confirm that strong phase fluctuation is an important character in the two-dimensional iron-based superconductors as widely observed in high-Tc cuprate superconductors.