No Arabic abstract
The Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer mechanism for superconductivity is a triumph of the theory of many-body systems. Implicit in its formulation is the existence of long-lived (quasi)particles, originating from the electronic building blocks of the materials, which interact to form Cooper pairs that move coherently in lock-step. The challenge of unconventional superconductors is that it is not only unclear what the nature of the interactions are, but whether the familiar quasi-particles that form a superconducting condensate even exist. In this work, we reveal, by the study of applied magnetic field in electronically diluted materials, that the metallic properties of the unconventional superconductor CeCoIn$_5$ are determined by the degree of quantum entanglement that (Kondo) hybridizes local and itinerant electrons. This work suggests that the properties of the strange metallic state are a reflection of the disentanglement of the many-body state into the underlying electronic building blocks of the system itself.
We present nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements on the three distinct In sites of CeCoIn$_5$ with magnetic field applied in the [100] direction. We identify the microscopic nature of the long range magnetic order (LRO) stabilized at low temperatures in fields above 10.2 T while still in the superconducting (SC) state. We infer that the ordered moment is oriented along the $hat c$-axis and map its field evolution. The study of the field dependence of the NMR shift for the different In sites indicates that the LRO likely coexists with a modulated SC phase, possibly that predicted by Fulde, Ferrell, Larkin, and Ovchinnikov. Furthermore, we discern a field region dominated by strong spin fluctuations where static LRO is absent and propose a revised phase diagram.
We report $^{115}$In nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements in CeCoIn$_5$ at low temperature ($T approx 70$ mK) as a function of magnetic field ($H_0$) from 2 T to 13.5 T applied perpendicular to the $hat c$-axis. NMR line shift reveals that below 10 T the spin susceptibility increases as $sqrt{H_0}$. We associate this with an increase of the density of states due to the Zeeman and Doppler-shifted quasiparticles extended outside the vortex cores in a d-wave superconductor. Above 10 T a new superconducting state is stabilized, possibly the modulated phase predicted by Fulde, Ferrell, Larkin and Ovchinnikov (FFLO). This phase is clearly identified by a strong and linear increase of the NMR shift with the field, before a jump at the first order transition to the normal state.
The heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn$_5$ displays an additional transition within its superconducting (SC) state, whose nature is characterized by high-precision studies of the isothermal field dependence of the entropy, derived from combined specific heat and magnetocaloric effect measurements at temperatures $Tgeq 100$ mK and fields $Hleq 12$ T aligned parallel, perpendicular and $18^circ$ off the tetragonal [100] direction. For any of these conditions, we do not observe an additional entropy contribution upon tuning at constant temperature by magnetic field from the homogeneous SC into the presumed Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) SC state. By contrast, for $Hparallel [100]$ a negative isothermal entropy contribution, compatible with spin-density-wave (SDW) ordering, is found. Our data exclude the formation of a FFLO state in CeCoIn$_5$ for out-of-plane field directions, where no SDW order exists.
Quantum criticality in the normal and superconducting state of the heavy-fermion metal CeCoIn$_5$ is studied by measurements of the magnetic Gr{u}neisen ratio, $Gamma_H$, and specific heat in different field orientations and temperatures down to 50 mK. Universal temperature over magnetic field scaling of $Gamma_H$ in the normal state indicates a hidden quantum critical point at zero field. Within the superconducting state the quasiparticle entropy at constant temperature increases upon reducing the field towards zero, providing additional evidence for zero-field quantum criticality.
We investigated the effect of electron and hole doping on the high-field low-temperature superconducting state in CeCoIn$_5$ by measuring specific heat of CeCo(In$_{rm 1-x}$M$_{rm x}$)$_5$ with M=Sn, Cd and Hg and $x$ up to 0.33% at temperatures down to 0.1,K and fields up to 14,T. Although both Cd- and Hg-doping (hole-doping) suppresses the zero-field $T_c$ monotonically, $H_{c2}$ increases with small amounts of doping and has a maximum around $x$=0.2% (M=Cd). On the other hand, with Sn-doping (electron-doping) both zero-field $T_c$ and $H_{c2}$ decrease monotonically. The critical temperature for the high-field low-temperature superconducting state (so called {it Q}-state) correlates with $H_{c2}$ and $T_c$, which we interpret in support of the superconducting origin of this state.