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1. Tuning magnetic confinement of spin-triplet superconductivity

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-020-00270-w  

   Lin, Wen-Chen ; Campbell, Daniel J. ; Ran, Sheng ; Liu, I-Lin ; Kim, Hyunsoo ; Nevidomskyy, Andriy H. ; Graf, David ; Butch, Nicholas P. ; Paglione, Johnpierre ( December 2020 , npj Quantum Materials)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Electrical magnetoresistance and tunnel diode oscillator measurements were performed under external magnetic fields up to 41 T applied along the crystallographic b axis (hard axis) of UTe 2 as a function of temperature and applied pressures up to 18.8 kbar. In this work, we track the field-induced first-order transition between superconducting and magnetic field-polarized phases as a function of applied pressure, showing suppression of the transition with increasing pressure until the demise of superconductivity near 16 kbar and the appearance of a pressure-induced ferromagnetic-like ground state that is distinct from the field-polarized phase and stable at zero field. Together with evidence for the evolution of a second superconducting phase and its upper critical field with pressure, we examine the confinement of superconductivity by two orthogonal magnetic phases and the implications for understanding the boundaries of triplet superconductivity. 

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2. Two superconducting states with broken time-reversal symmetry in FeSe 1−x S x

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208276120  

   Matsuura, Kohei ; Roppongi, Masaki ; Qiu, Mingwei ; Sheng, Qi ; Cai, Yipeng ; Yamakawa, Kohtaro ; Guguchia, Zurab ; Day, Ryan P. ; Kojima, Kenji M. ; Damascelli, Andrea ; et al ( May 2023 , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Iron-chalcogenide superconductors FeSe_1−xS_xpossess unique electronic properties such as nonmagnetic nematic order and its quantum critical point. The nature of superconductivity with such nematicity is important for understanding the mechanism of unconventional superconductivity. A recent theory suggested the possible emergence of a fundamentally new class of superconductivity with the so-called Bogoliubov Fermi surfaces (BFSs) in this system. However, such an ultranodal pair state requires broken time-reversal symmetry (TRS) in the superconducting state, which has not been observed experimentally. Here, we report muon spin relaxation (μSR) measurements in FeSe_1−xS_xsuperconductors for0≤x≤0.22covering both orthorhombic (nematic) and tetragonal phases. We find that the zero-field muon relaxation rate is enhanced below the superconducting transition temperatureT_cfor all compositions, indicating that the superconducting state breaks TRS both in the nematic and tetragonal phases. Moreover, the transverse-fieldμSR measurements reveal that the superfluid density shows an unexpected and substantial reduction in the tetragonal phase (x>0.17). This implies that a significant fraction of electrons remain unpaired in the zero-temperature limit, which cannot be explained by the known unconventional superconducting states with point or line nodes. The TRS breaking and the suppressed superfluid density in the tetragonal phase, together with the reported enhanced zero-energy excitations, are consistent with the ultranodal pair state with BFSs. The present results reveal two different superconducting states with broken TRS separated by the nematic critical point in FeSe_1−xS_x, which calls for the theory of microscopic origins that account for the relation between nematicity and superconductivity.

    

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3. Bulk evidence of anisotropic s-wave pairing with no sign change in the kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36273-x  

   Roppongi, M. ; Ishihara, K. ; Tanaka, Y. ; Ogawa, K. ; Okada, K. ; Liu, S. ; Mukasa, K. ; Mizukami, Y. ; Uwatoko, Y. ; Grasset, R. ; et al ( February 2023 , Nature Communications)

   The recently discovered kagome superconductorsAV₃Sb₅(A= K, Rb, Cs) exhibit unusual charge-density-wave (CDW) orders with time-reversal and rotational symmetry breaking. One of the most crucial unresolved issues is identifying the symmetry of the superconductivity that develops inside the CDW phase. Theory predicts a variety of unconventional superconducting symmetries with sign-changing and chiral order parameters. Experimentally, however, superconducting phase information inAV₃Sb₅is still lacking. Here we report the impurity effects in CsV₃Sb₅using electron irradiation as a phase-sensitive probe of superconductivity. Our magnetic penetration depth measurements reveal that with increasing impurities, an anisotropic fully-gapped state changes to an isotropic full-gap state without passing through a nodal state. Furthermore, transport measurements under pressure show that the double superconducting dome in the pressure-temperature phase diagram survives against sufficient impurities. These results support that CsV₃Sb₅is a non-chiral, anisotropics-wave superconductor with no sign change both at ambient and under pressure.

    

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4. Nature of the spin resonance mode in CeCoIn5

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-020-0365-8  

   Song, Yu ; Wang, Weiyi ; S. Van Dyke, John ; Pouse, Naveen ; Ran, Sheng ; Yazici, Duygu ; Schneidewind, A. ; Čermák, Petr ; Qiu, Y. ; Maple, M. B. ; et al ( May 2020 , Communications Physics)

   Spin-fluctuation-mediated unconventional superconductivity can emerge at the border of magnetism, featuring a superconducting order parameter that changes sign in momentum space. Detection of such a sign-change is experimentally challenging, since most probes are not phase-sensitive. The observation of a spin resonance mode (SRM) from inelastic neutron scattering is often seen as strong phase-sensitive evidence for a sign-changing superconducting order parameter, by assuming the SRM is a spin-excitonic bound state. Here we show that for the heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn₅, its SRM defies expectations for a spin-excitonic bound state, and is not a manifestation of sign-changing superconductivity. Instead, the SRM in CeCoIn₅likely arises from a reduction of damping to a magnon-like mode in the superconducting state, due to its proximity to magnetic quantum criticality. Our findings emphasize the need for more stringent tests of whether SRMs are spin-excitonic, when using their presence to evidence sign-changing superconductivity.

    

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5. Superconductor–insulator transitions in three-dimensional indium-oxide at high pressures

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/ac48bf  

   Hen, Bar ; Shelukhin, Victor ; Greenberg, Eran ; Rozenberg, Gregory Kh ; Kapitulnik, Aharon ; Palevski, Alexander ( January 2022 , Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter)

   Experiments investigating magnetic-field-tuned superconductor–insulator transition (HSIT) mostly focus on two-dimensional material systems where the transition and its proximate ground-state phases, often exhibit features that are seemingly at odds with the expected behavior. Here we present a complementary study of a three-dimensional pressure-packed amorphous indium-oxide (InOx) powder where granularity controls the HSIT. Above a low threshold pressure of ∼0.2 GPa, vestiges of superconductivity are detected, although neither a true superconducting transition nor insulating behavior are observed. Instead, a saturation at very high resistivity at low pressure is followed by saturation at very low resistivity at higher pressure. We identify both as different manifestations of anomalous metallic phases dominated by superconducting fluctuations. By analogy with previous identification of the low resistance saturation as a ‘failed superconductor’, our data suggests that the very high resistance saturation is a manifestation of a ‘failed insulator’. Above a threshold pressure of ∼6 GPa, the sample becomes fully packed, and superconductivity is robust, withT_Ctunable with pressure. A quantum critical point atP_C∼ 25 GPa marks the complete suppression of superconductivity. For a finite pressure belowP_C, a magnetic field is shown to induce a HSIT from a true zero-resistance superconducting state to a weakly insulating behavior. Determining the critical field,H_C, we show that similar to the 2D behavior, the insulating-like state maintains a superconducting character, which is quenched at higher field, above which the magnetoresistance decreases to its fermionic normal state value.

    

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