Evidence for nodal superconductivity in a layered compound Ta${}_4$Pd${}_3$Te${}_{16}$

Abstract

We report an investigation of the London penetration depth $\Delta \lambda (T)$ on single crystals of the layered superconductor Ta${}_4$Pd${}_3$Te${}_{16}$, where the crystal structure has quasi-one-dimensional characteristics. A linear temperature dependence of $\Delta \lambda (T)$ is observed for $T\ll T_c$, in contrast to the exponential decay of fully gapped superconductors. This indicates the existence of line nodes in the superconducting energy gap. A detailed analysis shows that the normalized superfluid density ${\rho }_s(T)$, which is converted from $\Delta \lambda (T)$, can be well described by a multigap scenario, with nodes in one of the superconducting gaps, providing clear evidence for nodal superconductivity in Ta${}_4$Pd${}_3$Te${}_{16}$.

7 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Superconductivity with extremely large upper critical fields in Nb2Pd0.81S5
• Superconductivity in a Layered Ta4Pd3Te16 with PdTe2 Chains
• Anisotropic Superconducting Gap and Elongated Vortices with Caroli-De-Gennes-Matricon States in the New Superconductor Ta4Pd3Te16
• Multiband Te $p$ Based Superconductivity of Ta${}_4$Pd${}_3$Te${}_{16}$