Thermodynamic evidence for nematic superconductivity in Cu${}_x$Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$

Abstract

Unconventional superconductivity is characterized by the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the macroscopic superconducting wavefunction in addition to the gauge symmetry breaking, such as rotational-symmetry breaking with respect to the underlying crystal-lattice symmetry. Particularly, superconductivity with spontaneous rotational-symmetry breaking in the wavefunction amplitude and thus in bulk properties, not yet reported previously, is intriguing and can be termed "nematic" superconductivity in analogy to nematic liquid-crystal phases. Here, based on specific-heat measurements of the single-crystalline Cu${}_x$Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ under accurate magnetic-field-direction control, we report thermodynamic evidence for nematic superconductivity, namely, clear two-fold-symmetric behavior in a trigonal lattice. The results indicate realization of an "odd-parity nematic" state, feasible only by macroscopic quantum condensates and distinct from nematic states in liquid crystals. The results also confirm topologically non-trivial superconductivity in Cu${}_x$Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$.

12 pages, 3 figures; plus 18 pages of Supplementary Materials (incl. 10 figures)

References in corpus (11)

• Nematic and meta-nematic transitions in the iron pnictides
• Formation of a Nematic Fluid at High Fields in Sr3Ru2O7
• Spin-Rotation Symmetry Breaking in the Superconducting State of CuxBi2Se3
• Bulk superconducting phase with a full energy gap in the doped topological insulator Cu_xBi_2Se_3
• Rotational Symmetry Breaking in the Hidden-Order Phase of URu2Si2
• Odd-parity topological superconductor with nematic order: Application to CuxBi2Se3
• Local Measurements of the Superconducting Pairing Symmetry in CuxBi2Se3
• First-Order Superconducting Transition of Sr2RuO4
• Superconducting doped topological materials
• Effect of Fermi surface evolution on superconducting gap in superconducting topological insulator
• Field-angle-dependent low-energy excitations around a vortex in the superconducting topological insulator CuxBi2Se3

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