Thermodynamic evidence for full-gap superconductivity in the dodecagonal quasicrystal Cu-doped Ta${}_{1.6}$Te

Abstract

We report the superconducting gap in the van der Waals layered quasicrystal Cu-doped Ta${}_{1.6}$Te, using a fast relaxation technique that removes the large nuclear contribution of ${}^{181}$Ta. The initial-slope method enabled detection of the electronic specific heat down to 60~mK, revealing a fully gapped state with $\hat{I}”(0)/k_{\mathrm{B}}=1.43$~K. Both the gap magnitude and specific-heat jump are smaller than BCS predictions, while quasiparticle excitations are strongly suppressed, consistent with a theoretical expectation for aperiodic systems. AC-susceptibility measurements show a large upper critical field and pronounced anisotropy, reflecting the quasi-two-dimensional structure. These results provide the first thermodynamic evidence for a full-gap superconducting state in a quasicrystal and highlight unconventional pairing mechanisms beyond periodic lattices.

12 pages, 5 figures