Thermodynamic evidence for nematic superconductivity in CuxBi2Se3

By S. Yonezawa, Kengo Tajiri, S. Nakata, Y. Nagai, Zhiwei Wang, K. Segawa, Y. Ando, Y. Maeno. Nature Physics, 2016

244 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In a nematic liquid crystal, electron orbitals align themselves along one axis, as rods. Thermodynamic observations of such rod-like alignments in CuxBi2Se3 provide evidence for a nematic superconductor. In condensed matter physics, spontaneous symmetry breaking has been a key concept, and discoveries of new types of broken symmetries have greatly increased our understanding of matter1,2. Recently, electronic nematicity, novel spontaneous rotational-symmetry breaking leading to an emergence of a special direction in electron liquids, has been attracting significant attention3,4,5,6. Here, we show bulk thermodynamic evidence for nematic superconductivity, in which the nematicity emerges in the superconducting gap amplitude, in CuxBi2Se3. Based on high-resolution calorimetry of single-crystalline samples under accurate two-axis control of the magnetic field direction, we discovered clear two-fold symmetry in the specific heat and in the upper critical field despite the trigonal symmetry of the lattice. Nematic superconductivity for this material should possess a unique topological nature associated with odd parity7,8,9. Thus, our findings establish a new class of spontaneously symmetry-broken states of matter—namely, odd-parity nematic superconductivity.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/31da236059a9ab1f3ab32aaddeeef11b543e6f74

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Y. Ando
2. Masatoshi Sato
3. K. Kawabata
4. Ken Shiozaki
5. Masahito Ueda

In Condensed Matter Physics

1. Y. Ando
2. Masatoshi Sato
3. Masahito Ueda

Citations in the corpus

• Topological superconductors: a review (2016, background): “With the recent confirmations of the topological ∆4 state in CuxBi2Se3 [193, 194], Majorana teleportation in InAs/Al nanowire [249], and the 4π-periodic Josephson effect in HgTe/Nb junction [244], concrete platforms for exploring the physics of topological superconductivity are being established.”