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Title: Inhomogeneous high temperature melting and decoupling of charge density waves in spin-triplet superconductor UTe2
Abstract Charge, spin and Cooper-pair density waves have now been widely detected in exotic superconductors. Understanding how these density waves emerge — and become suppressed by external parameters — is a key research direction in condensed matter physics. Here we study the temperature and magnetic-field evolution of charge density waves in the rare spin-triplet superconductor candidate UTe2using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. We reveal that charge modulations composed of three different wave vectors gradually weaken in a spatially inhomogeneous manner, while persisting to surprisingly high temperatures of 10–12 K. We also reveal an unexpected decoupling of the three-component charge density wave state. Our observations match closely to the temperature scale potentially related to short-range magnetic correlations, providing a possible connection between density waves observed by surface probes and intrinsic bulk features. Importantly, charge density wave modulations become suppressed with magnetic field both below and above superconductingTcin a comparable manner. Our work points towards an intimate connection between hidden magnetic correlations and the origin of the unusual charge density waves in UTe2.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2105191
PAR ID:
10546011
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Nature Springer
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Volume:
15
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2041-1723
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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