Interplay of hidden orbital order and superconductivity in CeCoIn<sub>5</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37225697.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-38760-7 and PMC identifier 10209141.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Visualizing atomic-orbital degrees of freedom is a frontier challenge in scanned microscopy. Some types of orbital order are virtually imperceptible to normal scattering techniques because they do not reduce the overall crystal lattice symmetry. A good example is d<sub>xz</sub>/d<sub>yz</sub> (π,π) orbital order in tetragonal lattices. For enhanced detectability, here we consider the quasiparticle scattering interference (QPI) signature of such (π,π) orbital order in both normal and superconducting phases. The theory reveals that sublattice-specific QPI signatures generated by the orbital order should emerge strongly in the superconducting phase. Sublattice-resolved QPI visualization in superconducting CeCoIn<sub>5</sub> then reveals two orthogonal QPI patterns at lattice-substitutional impurity atoms. We analyze the energy dependence of these two orthogonal QPI patterns and find the intensity peaked near E = 0, as predicted when such (π,π) orbital order is intertwined with d-wave superconductivity. Sublattice-resolved superconductive QPI techniques thus represent a new approach for study of hidden orbital order.