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

Abstract

The type II Dirac semimetal PdTe${}_2$ is unique in the family of topological parent materials because it displays a superconducting ground state below 1.7 K. Despite wide speculations on the possibility of an unconventional topological superconducting phase, tunneling and heat capacity measurements revealed that the superconducting phase of PdTe${}_2$ follows predictions of the microscopic theory of Bardeen, Cooper and Shriefer (BCS) for conventional superconductors. The superconducting phase in PdTe${}_2$ is further interesting because it also displays properties that are characteristics of type-I superconductors and are generally unexpected for binary compounds. Here, from scanning tunneling spectroscopic measurements we show that the surface of PdTe${}_2$ displays intrinsic electronic inhomegenities 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${}_2$ in the normal state.

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• Disorder induced transition from type-I to type-II superconductivity in the Dirac semimetal PdTe${}_2$
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