Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Leng, H
• Orain, J-C
• Amato, A
• Huang, Y K
• de Visser, A

Titel

Type-I superconductivity in the Dirac semimetal PdTe2 probed by μSR

Ist Teil von

• Physical review. B, 2019-12, Vol.100 (22)

Ort / Verlag

College Park: American Physical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

American Physical Society Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Dirac semimetal PdTe2 was recently reported to be a type-I superconductor with Tc=1.64 K and a critical field μ0Hc=13.6 mT. Since type-I superconductivity is unexpected for binary compounds, we have conducted muon spin rotation (μSR) experiments to probe the superconducting phase on the microscopic scale via its intermediate state. For crystals with a finite demagnetization factor N, the intermediate state forms in applied fields (1−N)Hc<Ha<Hc. We have carried out transverse field muon spin rotation measurements on a thin disklike crystal with the field perpendicular to (N⊥=0.87) and in the plane (N∥=0.08) of the disk. By analyzing the μSR signal we find that the volume fraction of the normal domains grows quasilinearly with applied field at the expense of the Meissner domain fraction. This then provides solid evidence for the intermediate state and type-I superconductivity in the bulk of PdTe2.