Journal article
Detection of a pair density wave state in UTe2
- Abstract:
- Spin-triplet topological superconductors should exhibit many unprecedented electronic properties, including fractionalized electronic states relevant to quantum information processing. Although UTe2 may embody such bulk topological superconductivity1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, its superconductive order parameter Δ(k) remains unknown12. Many diverse forms for Δ(k) are physically possible12 in such heavy fermion materials13. Moreover, intertwined14,15 density waves of spin (SDW), charge (CDW) and pair (PDW) may interpose, with the latter exhibiting spatially modulating14,15 superconductive order parameter Δ(r), electron-pair density16,17,18,19 and pairing energy gap17,20,21,22,23. Hence, the newly discovered CDW state24 in UTe2 motivates the prospect that a PDW state may exist in this material24,25. To search for it, we visualize the pairing energy gap with μeV-scale energy resolution using superconductive scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) tips26,27,28,29,30,31. We detect three PDWs, each with peak-to-peak gap modulations of around 10 μeV and at incommensurate wavevectors Pi=1,2,3 that are indistinguishable from the wavevectors Qi=1,2,3 of the prevenient24 CDW. Concurrent visualization of the UTe2 superconductive PDWs and the non-superconductive CDWs shows that every Pi:Qi pair exhibits a relative spatial phase δϕ ≈ π. From these observations, and given UTe2 as a spin-triplet superconductor12, this PDW state should be a spin-triplet PDW24,25. Although such states do exist32 in superfluid 3He, for superconductors, they are unprecedented.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 18.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41586-023-05919-7
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature More from this journal
- Volume:
- 618
- Issue:
- 7967
- Pages:
- 921–927
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2023-06-28
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-03-03
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1476-4687
- ISSN:
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0028-0836
- Pmid:
-
37380691
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Subjects:
- Pubs id:
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1489479
- Local pid:
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pubs:1489479
- Deposit date:
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2023-07-20
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Gu et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © 2023, The Author(s). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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