We describe a mechanism by which the longitudinal thermal conductivity $kappa_{xx}$, measured in an in-plane magnetic field, oscillates as a function of field angle in layered nodal superconductors. These oscillations occur when the spin-orbit splitting at the nodes is larger than the nodal scattering rate, and are complementary to vortex-induced oscillations identified previously. In sufficiently anisotropic materials, the spin-orbit mechanism may be dominant. As a particular application, we focus on the cuprate high-temperature superconductor YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$. This material belongs to the class of Rashba bilayers, in which individual CuO$_2$ layers lack inversion symmetry although the crystal itself is globally centrosymmetric. We show that spin-orbit coupling endows $kappa_{xx}/T$ with a characteristic dependence on magnetic field angle that should be easily detected experimentally, and argue that for underdoped samples the spin-orbit contribution is larger than the vortex contribution. A key advantage of the magneto-thermal conductivity is that it is a bulk probe of spin-orbit physics, and therefore not sensitive to inversion breaking at surfaces.
Download