No Arabic abstract
Electron pairing in the vast majority of superconductors follows the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity, which describes the condensation of electrons into pairs with antiparallel spins in a singlet state with an s-wave symmetry. Unconventional superconductivity is predicted in single layer graphene where the electrons pair with a p-wave or chiral d-wave symmetry, depending on the position of the Fermi energy with respect to the Dirac point. By placing single layer graphene on an electron-doped (non-chiral) d-wave superconductor and performing local scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, here we show evidence for a p-wave triggered superconducting density of states in single layer graphene. The realization of unconventional superconductivity in single layer graphene offers an exciting new route for the development of p-wave superconductivity using two-dimensional materials with transition temperatures above 4.2 K.
High-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity in the copper oxides arises from electron or hole doping of their antiferromagnetic (AF) insulating parent compounds. The evolution of the AF phase with doping and its spatial coexistence with superconductivity are governed by the nature of charge and spin correlations and provide clues to the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity. Here we use a combined neutron scattering and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) to study the Tc evolution of electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-delta obtained through the oxygen annealing process. We find that spin excitations detected by neutron scattering have two distinct modes that evolve with Tc in a remarkably similar fashion to the electron tunneling modes in STS. These results demonstrate that antiferromagnetism and superconductivity compete locally and coexist spatially on nanometer length scales, and the dominant electron-boson coupling at low energies originates from the electron-spin excitations.
We report on measurements of the in-plane magnetic penetration depth lambda_{ab} in the infinite-layer electron-doped high-temperature cuprate superconductor Sr_0.9La_0.1CuO_2 by means of muon-spin rotation. The observed temperature and magnetic field dependences of lambda_{ab} are consistent with the presence of a substantial s-wave component in the superconducting order parameter in good agreement with the results of tunneling, specific heat, and small-angle neutron scattering experiments.
We have performed a systematic angle-resolved photoemission study of as-grown and oxygen-reduced Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$ and Pr$_{1-x}$LaCe$_{x}$CuO$_4$ electron-doped cuprates. In contrast to the common belief, neither the band filling nor the band parameters are significantly affected by the oxygen reduction process. Instead, we show that the main electronic role of the reduction process is to remove an anisotropic leading edge gap around the Fermi surface. While the nodal leading edge gap is induced by long-range antiferomagnetic order, the origin of the antinodal one remains unclear.
We show that the {it gapped} triplet superconductivity, i.e., a triplet superconductor with triplet order parameter, can be realized in strong spin-orbit-coupled quantum wells in proximity to $s$-wave superconductor. It is revealed that with the singlet order parameter induced from the superconducting proximity effect, in quantum wells, not only can the triplet pairings arise due to the spin-orbit coupling, but also the triplet order parameter can be induced due to the repulsive effective electron-electron interaction, including the electron-electron Coulomb and electron-phonon interactions. This is a natural extension of the work of de Gennes, in which the repulsive-interaction-induced singlet order parameter arises in the normal metal in proximity to $s$-wave superconductor [Rev. Mod. Phys. {bf 36}, 225 (1964)]. Specifically, we derive the effective Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation, in which the self-energies due to the effective electron-electron interactions contribute to the singlet and triplet order parameters. It is further shown that for the singlet order parameter, it is efficiently suppressed due to this self-energy renormalization; whereas for the triplet order parameter, it is the $p$-wave ($p_xpm ip_y$) one with the ${bf d}$-vector parallel to the effective magnetic field due to the spin-orbit coupling. Finally, we perform the numerical calculation in InSb (100) quantum wells. Specifically, we reveal that the Coulomb interaction is much more important than the electron-phonon interaction at low temperature. Moreover, it shows that with proper electron density, the minimum of the renormalized singlet and the maximum of the induced triplet order parameters are comparable, and hence can be experimentally distinguished.
In high temperature cuprate superconductors, it is now generally agreed that the parent compound is a Mott insulator and superconductivity is realized by doping the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator. In the iron-based superconductors, however, the parent compound is mostly antiferromagnetic metal, raising a debate on whether an appropriate starting point should go with an itinerant picture or a localized picture. It has been proposed theoretically that the parent compound of the iron-based superconductors may be on the verge of a Mott insulator, but so far no clear experimental evidence of doping-induced Mott transition has been available. Here we report an electronic evidence of an insulator-superconductor transition observed in the single-layer FeSe films grown on the SrTiO3 substrate. By taking angle-resolved photoemission measurements on the electronic structure and energy gap, we have identified a clear evolution of an insulator to a superconductor with the increasing doping. This observation represents the first example of an insulator-superconductor transition via doping observed in the iron-based superconductors. It indicates that the parent compound of the iron-based superconductors is in proximity of a Mott insulator and strong electron correlation should be considered in describing the iron-based superconductors.