No Arabic abstract
Two-dimensional (2D) topological superconductors are highly desired because they not only offer opportunities for exploring novel exotic quantum physics, but also possesses potential applications in quantum computation. However, there are few reports on 2D superconductors, let alone topological superconductors. Here, we find a 2D monolayer W$_2$N$_3$, which can be exfoliated from its real van der Waals bulk material with much lower exfoliation energy than MoS$_2$, to be a topological metal with exotic topological states at different energy level. Due to the Van Hove singularities, the density of states near Fermi level are high, making the monolayer a compensate metal. Moreover, the monolayer W$_2$N$_3$ is unveiled to be a superconductor with the superconducting transition temperature Tc $sim$ 22 K and a superconducting gap of about 5 meV based on the anisotropic Migdal-Eliashberg formalism, arising from the strong electron-phonon coupling around the $Gamma$ point. Because of the strong electron and lattice coupling, the monolayer displays a non-Fermi liquid behavior in its normal states at temperatures lower than 80 K, where the specific heat exhibit T$^3$ behavior and the Wiedemann-Franz law dramatically violates. Our findings not only provide the platform to study the emergent phenomena in 2D topological superconductors, but also open a door to discover more 2D high-temperature topological superconductors in van der Waals materials.
Structural and superconducting transitions of layered van der Waals (vdW) hydrogenated germanene (GeH) were observed under high-pressure compression and decompression processes. GeH possesses a superconducting transition at critical temperature (Tc) of 5.41 K at 8.39 GPa. A crystalline to amorphous transition occurs at 16.80 GPa while superconductivity remains. An abnormally increased Tc up to 6.1 K has been observed in the decompression process while the GeH remained amorphous. Thorough in-situ high-pressure synchrotron X-ray diffraction and in-situ high-pressure Raman spectroscopy with the density functional theory simulations suggest that the superconductivity of GeH should be attributed to the increased density of states at the Fermi level as well as the enhanced electron-phonon coupling effect under high pressure. The decompression-driven superconductivity enhancement arises from pressure-induced phonon softening related to an in-plane Ge-Ge phonon mode. As an amorphous metal hydride superconductor, GeH provides a platform to study amorphous hydride superconductivity in layered vdW materials.
The designer approach has become a new paradigm in accessing novel quantum phases of matter. Moreover, the realization of exotic states such as topological insulators, superconductors and quantum spin liquids often poses challenging or even contradictory demands for any single material. For example, it is presently unclear if topological superconductivity, which has been suggested as a key ingredient for topological quantum computing, exists at all in any naturally occurring material . This problem can be circumvented by using designer heterostructures combining different materials, where the desired physics emerges from the engineered interactions between the different components. Here, we employ the designer approach to demonstrate two major breakthroughs - the fabrication of van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures combining 2D ferromagnetism with superconductivity and the observation of 2D topological superconductivity. We use molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) to grow two-dimensional islands of ferromagnetic chromium tribromide (CrBr$_3$) on superconducting niobium diselenide (NbSe$_2$) and show the signatures of one-dimensional Majorana edge modes using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS). The fabricated two-dimensional vdW heterostructure provides a high-quality controllable platform that can be integrated in device structures harnessing topological superconductivity. Finally, layered heterostructures can be readily accessed by a large variety of external stimuli potentially allowing external control of 2D topological superconductivity through electrical, mechanical, chemical, or optical means.
Two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials show a range of profound physical properties that can be tailored through their incorporation in heterostructures and manipulated with external forces. The recent discovery of long-range ferromagnetic order down to atomic layers provides an additional degree of freedom in engineering 2D materials and their heterostructure devices for spintronics, valleytronics and magnetic tunnel junction switches. Here, using direct imaging by cryo-Lorentz transmission electron microscopy we show that topologically nontrivial magnetic-spin states, skyrmionic bubbles, can be realized in exfoliated insulating 2D vdW Cr2Ge2Te6. Due to the competition between dipolar interactions and uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, hexagonally-packed nanoscale bubble lattices emerge by field cooling with magnetic field applied along the out-of-plane direction. Despite a range of topological spin textures in stripe domains arising due to pair formation and annihilation of Bloch lines, bubble lattices with single chirality are prevalent. Our observation of topologically-nontrivial homochiral skyrmionic bubbles in exfoliated vdW materials provides a new avenue for novel quantum states in atomically-thin insulators for magneto-electronic and quantum devices.
Driving a two-dimensional Mott insulator with circularly polarized light breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetry, which induces an optically-tunable synthetic scalar spin chirality interaction in the effective low-energy spin Hamiltonian. Here, we show that this mechanism can stabilize topological magnon excitations in honeycomb ferromagnets and in optical lattices. We find that the irradiated quantum magnet is described by a Haldane model for magnons that hosts topologically-protected edge modes. We study the evolution of the magnon spectrum in the Floquet regime and via time propagation of the magnon Hamiltonian for a slowly varying pulse envelope. Compared to similar but conceptually distinct driving schemes based on the Aharanov-Casher effect, the dimensionless light-matter coupling parameter $lambda = eEa/hbaromega$ at fixed electric field strength is enhanced by a factor $sim 10^5$. This increase of the coupling parameter allows to induce a topological gap of the order of $Delta approx 2$ meV with realistic laser pulses, bringing an experimental realization of light-induced topological magnon edge states within reach.
Advances in low-dimensional superconductivity are often realized through improvements in material quality. Apart from a small group of organic materials, there is a near absence of clean-limit two-dimensional (2D) superconductors, which presents an impediment to the pursuit of numerous long-standing predictions for exotic superconductivity with fragile pairing symmetries. Here, we report the development of a bulk superlattice consisting of the transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) superconductor 2$H$-niobium disulfide (2$H$-NbS$_2$) and a commensurate block layer that yields dramatically enhanced two-dimensionality, high electronic quality, and clean-limit inorganic 2D superconductivity. The structure of this material may naturally be extended to generate a distinct family of 2D superconductors, topological insulators, and excitonic systems based on TMDs with improved material properties.