Publication Date
7-1-2018
Department
Ames Laboratory; Physics and Astronomy
Campus Units
Physics and Astronomy, Ames Laboratory
Report Number
IS-J 9708
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.98.024508
Journal Title
Physical Review B
Volume Number
98
Issue Number
2
First Page
024508
Abstract
Superconducting gap structure was probed in type-II Dirac semimetal PdTe2 by measuring the London penetration depth using the tunnel diode resonator technique. At low temperatures, the data for two samples are well described by a weak-coupling exponential fit yielding λ(T=0)=230 nm as the only fit parameter at a fixed Δ(0)/Tc≈1.76, and the calculated superfluid density is consistent with a fully gapped superconducting state characterized by a single gap scale. Electrical resistivity measurements for in-plane and inter-plane current directions find very low and nearly temperature-independent normal-state anisotropy. The temperature dependence of resistivity is typical for conventional phonon scattering in metals. We compare these experimental results with expectations from a detailed theoretical symmetry analysis and reduce the number of possible superconducting pairing states in PdTe2 to only three nodeless candidates: a regular, topologically trivial s-wave pairing, and two distinct odd-parity triplet states that both can be topologically nontrivial depending on the microscopic interactions driving the superconducting instability.
Language
en
Department of Energy Subject Categories
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Publisher
Iowa State University Digital Repository, Ames IA (United States)
