Nearly ferromagnetic spin-triplet superconductivity.

Ran, Sheng; Eckberg, Chris; Ding, Qing-Ping; Furukawa, Yuji; Metz, Tristin; Saha, Shanta R; Liu, I-Lin; Zic, Mark et al. · Science · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Spin-triplet superconductors potentially host topological excitations that are of interest for quantum information processing. We report the discovery of spin-triplet superconductivity in UTe<sub>2</sub>, featuring a transition temperature of 1.6 kelvin and a very large and anisotropic upper critical field exceeding 40 teslas. This superconducting phase stability suggests that UTe<sub>2</sub> is related to ferromagnetic superconductors such as UGe<sub>2</sub>, URhGe, and UCoGe. However, the lack of magnetic order and the observation of quantum critical scaling place UTe<sub>2</sub> at the paramagnetic end of this ferromagnetic superconductor series. A large intrinsic zero-temperature reservoir of ungapped fermions indicates a highly unconventional type of superconducting pairing.