No Arabic abstract
Recent discovery of Ising superconductivity protected against in-plane magnetic field by spin-orbit coupling (SOC) has stimulated intensive research interests. The effect, however, was only expected to appear in two-dimensional (2D) noncentrosymmetric materials with spin-valley locking. In this work, we proposed a new type of Ising superconductivity in 2D materials with $C_{nz}$ rotational symmetry ($n=3,4,6$). This mechanism, dubbed as type-II Ising superconductivity, is applicable for centrosymmetric materials. Type-II Ising superconductivity relies on the SOC-induced spin-orbital locking characterized by Ising-type Zeeman-like fields displaying opposite signs for opposing orbitals. We found that type-II Ising superconductivity are most prominent around time-reversal invariant momenta and is not sensitive to inversion symmetry breaking. By performing high-throughput first-principles calculations, about one hundred candidate materials were identified. Our work significantly enriches the physics and materials of Ising superconductor, opening new opportunities for fundamental research and practical applications of 2D materials.
We develop a strong-coupling theory of Bose-Einstein condensate-mediated superconductivity in a hybrid system, which consists of a two-dimensional electron gas with either (i) parabolic spectrum or (ii) relativistic Dirac spectrum in the vicinity of a two-dimensional solid-state condensate of indirect excitons. The Eliashberg equations are derived and the expressions for the electron pairing self-energy due to the exchange interaction between electrons mediated by a single Bogoliubov excitation (a bogolon) and the bogolon pairs are found. Furthermore, we find the superconducting order parameter and estimate the critical temperature of the superconducting transition. The critical temperature reveals its linear dependence on the dimensionless coupling constant. It is shown, that the bogolon-pair-mediated interaction is the dominant mechanism of electron pairing in hybrid systems in both the weak and strong coupling regimes. We calculate the effective bogolon-electron interaction constant for both parabolic and linear electron dispersions and examine the dependence of the critical temperature of electron gas superconducting transition on exciton condensate density.
We study theoretically the onset of nonuniform superconductivity in a one-dimensional single wire in presence of Zeeman (or exchange field) and spin-orbit coupling. Using the Greens function formalism, we show that the spin-orbit coupling stabilizes modulated superconductivity in a broad range of temperatures and Zeeman fields. We investigate the anisotropy of the temperature-Zeeman field phase diagram, which is related to the orientation of the Zeeman field. In particular, the inhomogeneous superconducting state disappears if this latter field is aligned or perpendicular to the wire direction. We identify two regimes corresponding to weak and strong spin-orbit coupling respectively. The wave-vector of the modulated phase is evaluated in both regimes. The results also pertain for quasi-1D superconductors made of weakly coupled 1D chains.
Non-equilibrium studies of two-dimensional (2D) superconductors (SCs) with Ising spin-orbit coupling are prerequisite for their successful application to equilibrium spin-triplet Cooper pairs and, potentially, Majorana fermions. Here, we fabricate non-local magnon devices to examine how such 2D Ising superconductivity affects the conversion efficiency of magnon spin to quasiparticle charge in superconducting flakes of 2H-NbSe2 transferred onto ferromagnetic insulating Y3Fe5O12. Comparison with a reference device based on a conventionally paired superconductor shows that the Y3Fe5O12-induced in-plane (IP) exchange spin-splitting in the NbSe2 flake is hindered by its inherent out-of-plane (OOP) spin-orbit-field, which, in turn, limits the transition-state enhancement of the spin-to-charge conversion efficiency. Our out-of-equilibrium study highlights the significance of symmetry matching between underlying Cooper pairs and exchange-induced spin-splitting for the giant transition-state spin-to-charge conversion and may have implications towards proximity-engineered spin-polarized triplet pairing via tuning the relative strength of IP exchange and OOP spin-orbit fields in ferromagnetic insulator/2D Ising SC bilayers.
When interacting electrons are confined to low-dimensions, the electron-electron correlation effect is enhanced dramatically, which often drives the system into exhibiting behaviors that are otherwise highly improbable. Superconductivity with the strongest electron correlations is achieved in heavy-fermion compounds, which contain a dense lattice of localized magnetic moments interacting with a sea of conduction electrons to form a 3D Kondo lattice. It had remained an unanswered question whether superconductivity would persist upon effectively reducing the dimensionality of these materials from three to two. Here we report on the observation of superconductivity in such an ultimately strongly-correlated system of heavy electrons confined within a 2D square-lattice of Ce-atoms (2D Kondo lattice), which was realized by fabricating epitaxial superlattices built of alternating layers of heavy-fermion CeCoIn5 and conventional metal YbCoIn5. The field-temperature phase diagram of the superlattices exhibits highly unusual behaviors, including a striking enhancement of the upper critical field relative to the transition temperature. This implies that the force holding together the superconducting electron-pairs takes on an extremely strong coupled nature as a result of two-dimensionalization.
Recent emergence of two-dimensional (2D) crystalline superconductors has provided a promising platform to investigate novel quantum physics and potential applications. To reveal essential quantum phenomena therein, ultralow temperature transport investigation on high quality ultrathin superconducting films is critically required, although it has been quite challenging experimentally. Here we report a systematic transport study on the ultrathin crystalline PdTe2 films grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Interestingly, a new type of Ising superconductivity in 2D centrosymmetric materials is revealed by the detection of large in-plane critical field more than 7 times Pauli limit. Remarkably, in perpendicular magnetic field, we provide solid evidence of anomalous metallic state characterized by the resistance saturation at low temperatures with high quality filters. The robust superconductivity with intriguing quantum phenomena in the macro-size ambient-stable ultrathin PdTe2 films remains almost the same for 20 months, showing great potentials in electronic and spintronic applications.