ABSTRACT
Magnetic field penetrates type-II bulk superconductors by forming quantum vortices that enclose a magnetic flux equal to the magnetic flux quantum. The flux quantum is a universal quantity that depends only on fundamental constants. In this study, we investigated isolated vortices in the hole-overdoped Ba1-xKxFe2As2 (x = 0.77) by using scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometry. In many locations, we observed objects that carried only part of a flux quantum, with a magnitude that varied continuously with temperature. We demonstrated mobility and manipulability of these objects and interpreted them as quantum vortices with nonuniversally quantized (fractional) magnetic flux whose magnitude is determined by the temperature-dependent parameters of a multicomponent superconductor.
ABSTRACT
Fulde, Ferrell, Larkin, and Ovchinnikov (FFLO) predicted inhomogeneous superconducting and superfluid ground states, spontaneously breaking translation symmetries. In this Letter, we demonstrate that the transition from the FFLO to the normal state as a function of temperature or increased Fermi surface splitting is not a direct one. Instead, the system has an additional phase transition to a different state where pair-density-wave superconductivity (or superfluidity) exists only on the boundaries of the system, while the bulk of the system is normal. The surface pair-density-wave state is very robust and exists for much larger fields and temperatures than the FFLO state.
