Proximity-induced collective modes in an unconventional superconductor heterostructure
arXiv:2201.04635 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.106.064508
Abstract
Unconventional superconductors have been long sought for their potential applications in quantum technologies and devices. A key challenge impeding this effort is the difficulty associated with probing and characterizing candidate materials and establishing their order parameter. In this Letter, we present a platform that allows us to spectroscopically probe unconventional superconductivity in thin-layer materials via the proximity effect. We show that inducing an s-wave gap in a sample with an intrinsic d-wave instability leads to the formation of bound-states of quasiparticle pairs, which manifest as a collective mode in the d-wave channel. This finding provides a way to study the underlying pairing interactions vicariously through the collective mode spectrum of the system. Upon further cooling of the system we observe that this mode softens considerably and may even condense, signaling the onset of time-reversal symmetry breaking superconductivity. Therefore, our proposal also allows for the creation and study of these elusive unconventional states.
8 pages + 8 pages supplemental , 4 figures + 2 figures supplemental
References in corpus (11)
- Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
- Tunable Phase Boundaries and Ultra-Strong Coupling Superconductivity in Mirror Symmetric Magic-Angle Trilayer Graphene
- Inelastic Light Scattering From Correlated Electrons
- Proximity effect at the superconductor - topological insulator interface
- Engineering a p+ip Superconductor: Comparison of Topological Insulator and Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupled Materials
- Proximity-induced high-temperature superconductivity in topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3
- High-temperature topological superconductivity in twisted double layer copper oxides
- Josephson effect between a two-band superconductor with the s++ or s+- pairing symmetry and a conventional s-wave superconductor
- Ground state, collective mode, phase soliton and vortex in multiband superconductors
- Superconducting proximity effect in a transparent van der Waals superconductor-metal junction
- Frustration phenomena in Josephson point contacts between single-band and three-band superconductors