Tip-induced superconductivity coexisting with preserved topological properties in line-nodal semimetal ZrSiS.

ZrSiS was recently shown to be a new material with topologically non-trivial band structure that exhibits multiple Dirac nodes and a robust linear band dispersion up to an unusually high energy of 2 eV. Such a robust linear dispersion makes the topological properties of ZrSiS insensitive to perturbations like carrier doping or lattice distortion. Here, we show that a novel superconducting phase with a remarkably high [Formula: see text] of 7.5 K can be induced in single crystals of ZrSiS by a non-superconducting metallic tip of Ag. From first-principles calculations, we show that the observed superconducting phase might originate from a dramatic enhancement of density of states due to the presence of a metallic tip on ZrSiS. Our calculations also show that the emerging tip-induced superconducting phase co-exists with the well preserved topological properties of ZrSiS.

Mixed type I and type II superconductivity due to intrinsic electronic inhomogeneities in the type II Dirac semimetal PdTe2.

The type II Dirac semimetal PdTe[Formula: see text] is unique in the family of topological parent materials because it displays a superconducting ground state below 1.7 K. Despite wide speculation on the possibility of an unconventional topological superconducting phase, tunneling and heat capacity measurements revealed that the superconducting phase of PdTe[Formula: see text] follows predictions of the microscopic theory of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer for conventional superconductors. The superconducting phase in PdTe[Formula: see text] is further interesting because it also displays properties that are characteristic of type-I superconductors and are generally unexpected for binary compounds. Here, from scanning tunneling spectroscopic measurements we show that the surface of PdTe[Formula: see text] displays intrinsic electronic inhomogeneities in the normal state which leads to a mixed type I and type II superconducting behaviour along with a spatial distribution of critical fields in the superconducting state. Understanding of the origin of such inhomogeneities may be important for understanding the topological properties of PdTe[Formula: see text] in the normal state.

Suppression of transport spin-polarization of surface states with emergence of ferromagnetism in Mn-doped Bi2Se3.

The surface states of topological insulators (TI) are protected by time reversal symmetry and they display intrinsic spin helicity where the momentum of the charge carriers decides their spin states. As a consequence, a current injected through the surface states becomes spin polarized and this transport spin-polarization leads to a proportionate suppression of Andreev reflection in superconductor/TI junctions. Here we show that upon doping Bi2Se3 with Mn, the transport spin-polarization is seen to be monotonically suppressed. The parent compound Bi2Se3 is found to exhibit a transport spin-polarization of about 63% whereas crystals with 10% Mn doping show transport spin-polarization of about 48%. This suppression is accompanied by an increasing ferromagnetic order of the crystals with Mn doping. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy shows that the topological protection of the surface states reduces due to Mn doping. The net measured transport spin-polarization is due to a competition of this effect with the increased magnetization on Mn doping. The present results provide important insights for the choice of magnetic topological insulators for spintronic applications.

Large enhancement of superconductivity in Zr point contacts.

For certain complex superconducting systems, the superconducting properties get enhanced under mesoscopic point contacts made of elemental non-superconducting metals. However, understanding of the mechanism through which such contact induced local enhancement of superconductivity happens has been limited due to the complex nature of such compounds. In this paper we present a large enhancement of superconducting transition temperature T c and superconducting energy gap Δ in a simple elemental superconductor Zr. While bulk Zr shows a critical temperature around 0.6 K, superconductivity survives at Ag/Zr and Pt/Zr point contacts up to 3 K with a corresponding five-fold enhancement of Δ. Further, the first-principles calculations on a model system provide useful insights. We show that the enhancement in superconducting properties can be attributed to a modification in the electron-phonon coupling accompanied by an enhancement of the density of states which involves the appearance of a new electron band at the Ag/Zr interfaces.

Mesoscopic superconductivity and high spin polarization coexisting at metallic point contacts on Weyl semimetal TaAs.

A Weyl semimetal is a topologically non-trivial phase of matter that hosts mass-less Weyl fermions, the particles that remained elusive for more than 80 years since their theoretical discovery. The Weyl semimetals exhibit unique transport properties and remarkably high surface spin polarization. Here we show that a mesoscopic superconducting phase with critical temperature Tc=7 K can be realized by forming metallic point contacts with silver (Ag) on single crystals of TaAs, while neither Ag nor TaAs are superconductors. Andreev reflection spectroscopy of such point contacts reveals a superconducting gap of 1.2 meV that coexists with a high transport spin polarization of 60% indicating a highly spin-polarized supercurrent flowing through the point contacts on TaAs. Therefore, apart from the discovery of a novel mesoscopic superconducting phase, our results also show that the point contacts on Weyl semimetals are potentially important for applications in spintronics.

Transport spectroscopy on trapped superconducting nano-islands of Pb: signature of unconventional pairing.

Elemental bulk lead (Pb) is a conventional type I, spin-singlet (s-wave) superconductor with a critical temperature T c = 7.2 K and a critical magnetic field H c = 800 Oe. However, it is known that at mesoscopic length scales, like in point-contact geometries, Pb shows significantly higher critical field, sometimes up to several Tesla. We have used this property to trap a small superconducting nano-droplet of Pb by forming a metallic point contact on Pb and then applying a magnetic field larger than 800 Oe that drives the bulk of the material non-superconducting. From systematic magnetic field dependent behaviour of the point-contact spectra measured across such a trapped island of Pb we show that the superconducting order parameter of mesoscopic Pb mixes non-trivially with magnetic field possibly due to the emergence of a local spin-triplet component at such length scales. From comparative studies with Nb-based point contacts we surmise that the strong spin-orbit coupling in Pb leads to the emergence of the unconventional component in the order parameter of mesoscopic Pb.

Evidence of a pseudogap driven by competing orders of multi-band origin in the ferromagnetic superconductor Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2.

From temperature and magnetic field dependent point-contact spectroscopy on the ferromagnetic superconductor Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2 (bulk superconducting [Formula: see text] K) we observe (a) a pseudogap in the normal state that sustains to a remarkably high temperature of 40 K and (b) two-fold enhancement of T c upto 5 K in the point-contact geometry. In addition, Andreev reflection spectroscopy reveals a superconducting gap of 6 meV for certain point-contacts suggesting that the mean field T c of this system could be approximately 40 K, the onset temperature of pseudo-gap. Our results suggest that quantum fluctuations originating from other competing orders in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2 forbid a global phase coherence at high temperatures thereby suppressing T c. Apart from the known ordering to a ferromagnetic state, our first-principles calculations reveal nesting of a multi-band Fermi surface and a significant electron-phonon coupling that could result in charge density wave-like instabilities.