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Chiral singlet superconductivity in the weakly correlated metal LaPt3P

Biswas, P.K., Ghosh, S.K., Zhao, J.Z., Mayoh, D.A., Zhigadlo, N.D., Xu, Xiaofeng, Baines, C., Hillier, A.D., Balakrishnan, G., Lees, M.R. and others. (2021) Chiral singlet superconductivity in the weakly correlated metal LaPt3P. Nature Communications, 12 . Article Number 2504. E-ISSN 2041-1723. (doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22807-8) (KAR id:88011)

Abstract

Chiral superconductors are novel topological materials with finite angular momentum Cooper pairs circulating around a unique chiral axis, thereby spontaneously breaking time-reversal symmetry. They are rather scarce and usually feature triplet pairing: a canonical example is the chiral p-wave state realized in the A-phase of superfluid He3. Chiral triplet superconductors are, however, topologically fragile with the corresponding gapless boundary modes only weakly protected against symmetry-preserving perturbations in contrast to their singlet counterparts. Using muon spin relaxation measurements, here we report that the weakly correlated pnictide compound LaPt3P has the two key features of a chiral superconductor: spontaneous magnetic fields inside the superconducting state indicating broken time-reversal symmetry and low temperature linear behaviour in the superfluid density indicating line nodes in the order parameter. Using symmetry analysis, first principles band structure calculation and mean-field theory, we unambiguously establish that the superconducting ground state of LaPt3P is a chiral d-wave singlet.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1038/s41467-021-22807-8
Uncontrolled keywords: Physics of Quantum Materials
Subjects: Q Science > QC Physics > QC173.45 Condensed Matter
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Sudeep Kumar Ghosh
Date Deposited: 10 May 2021 05:39 UTC
Last Modified: 14 Nov 2022 23:12 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/88011 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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