Possible Unconventional Surface Superconductivity in the Half-Heusler YPtBi

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Persky, Eylon, Fang, Alan, Zhang, Xinyang, Adamo, Carolina, Levenson-Falk, Eli, Shekhar, Chandra, Felser, Claudia, Yan, Binghai, Kapitulnik, Aharon
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Persky, Eylon
Fang, Alan
Zhang, Xinyang
Adamo, Carolina
Levenson-Falk, Eli
Shekhar, Chandra
Felser, Claudia
Yan, Binghai
Kapitulnik, Aharon
author_facet Persky, Eylon
Fang, Alan
Zhang, Xinyang
Adamo, Carolina
Levenson-Falk, Eli
Shekhar, Chandra
Felser, Claudia
Yan, Binghai
Kapitulnik, Aharon
contents We report an extensive study of the noncentrosymmetric half-Heusler superconductor YPtBi, revealing an unusual relation between bulk superconductivity and the possible appearance of surface superconductivity on the (111) oriented surface, at temperatures up to 3 times the bulk transition temperature. Transport measurements confirmed the low carrier density of the material and its bulk superconducting transition, which was also observed in ac susceptibility through mutual inductance (MI) measurements. However, a weak signature of superconductivity in the MI measurements appeared much above the bulk transition temperature, which was further observed in scanning tunneling spectroscopy, pointing to a possible surface superconducting state. Polar Kerr effect measurements suggest that while the bulk superconductor may exhibit an unusual nodal superconducting state, only the surface state breaks time reversal symmetry. Complementary tunneling measurements on LuPtBi are used to establish the observations on YPtBi, while density-functional theory calculations may shed light on the origin of this unusual surface state.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2312_17213
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Possible Unconventional Surface Superconductivity in the Half-Heusler YPtBi
Persky, Eylon
Fang, Alan
Zhang, Xinyang
Adamo, Carolina
Levenson-Falk, Eli
Shekhar, Chandra
Felser, Claudia
Yan, Binghai
Kapitulnik, Aharon
Superconductivity
Strongly Correlated Electrons
We report an extensive study of the noncentrosymmetric half-Heusler superconductor YPtBi, revealing an unusual relation between bulk superconductivity and the possible appearance of surface superconductivity on the (111) oriented surface, at temperatures up to 3 times the bulk transition temperature. Transport measurements confirmed the low carrier density of the material and its bulk superconducting transition, which was also observed in ac susceptibility through mutual inductance (MI) measurements. However, a weak signature of superconductivity in the MI measurements appeared much above the bulk transition temperature, which was further observed in scanning tunneling spectroscopy, pointing to a possible surface superconducting state. Polar Kerr effect measurements suggest that while the bulk superconductor may exhibit an unusual nodal superconducting state, only the surface state breaks time reversal symmetry. Complementary tunneling measurements on LuPtBi are used to establish the observations on YPtBi, while density-functional theory calculations may shed light on the origin of this unusual surface state.
title Possible Unconventional Surface Superconductivity in the Half-Heusler YPtBi
topic Superconductivity
Strongly Correlated Electrons
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.17213