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

Sirohi, Anshu and Das, Shekhar and Adhikary, Priyo and Chowdhury, Rajeswari Roy and Vashist, Amit and Singh, Yogesh and Gayen, Sirshendu and Das, Tanmoy and Sheet, Goutam (2019) Mixed type I and type II superconductivity due to intrinsic electronic inhomogeneities in the type II Dirac semimetal PdTe2. In: JOURNAL OF PHYSICS-CONDENSED MATTER, 31 (8).

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Abstract

The type 11 Dirac semimetal PdTe2 is unique in the family of topological parent materials because it displays a superconducting ground state below 1.7 K. Despite wide speculation on the possibility of an unconventional topological superconducting phase, tunneling and heat capacity measurements revealed that the superconducting phase of PdTe2 follows predictions of the microscopic theory of Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer for conventional superconductors. The superconducting phase in PdTe2 is further interesting because it also displays properties that are characteristic of type-I superconductors and are generally unexpected for binary compounds. Here, from scanning tunneling spectroscopic measurements we show that the surface of PdTe2 displays intrinsic electronic inhomogeneities 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 PdTe2 in the normal state.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF PHYSICS-CONDENSED MATTER
Publisher:	IOP PUBLISHING LTD
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to IOP PUBLISHING LTD
Keywords:	superconductivity; Dirac semimetal; topological materials
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	10 Feb 2019 09:48
Last Modified:	10 Feb 2019 09:48
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/61630

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