ABSTRACT
Materials with multiple superconducting phases are rare. Here, we report the discovery of two-phase unconventional superconductivity in CeRh2As2 Using thermodynamic probes, we establish that the superconducting critical field of its high-field phase is as high as 14 tesla, even though the transition temperature is only 0.26 kelvin. Furthermore, a transition between two different superconducting phases is observed in a c axis magnetic field. Local inversion-symmetry breaking at the cerium sites enables Rashba spin-orbit coupling alternating between the cerium sublayers. The staggered Rashba coupling introduces a layer degree of freedom to which the field-induced transition and high critical field seen in experiment are likely related.
ABSTRACT
In this work we aim to analyze the effect of a strong antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling (ASOC) on the superconductivity of noncentrosymmetric LaPtSi. We study the energy gap structure of polycrystalline LaPtSi by using magnetic penetration depth measurements down to 0.02T c. We observed a dirty s-wave behavior, which provides compelling evidence that the spin-singlet component of the mixed pairing state is highly dominant. This is consistent with previous results in the sense that the mere presence of a strong ASOC does not lead to unconventional behaviors. Our result also downplays LaPtSi as a good candidate for realizing time-reversal invariant topological superconductivity.
