Bereziskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in the Weyl system PtBi2

Symmetry breaking in topological matter has become in recent years a key concept in condensed matter physics to unveil novel electronic states. In this work, we predict that broken inversion symmetry and strong spin–orbit coupling in trigonal PtBi2 lead to a type-I Weyl semimetal band structure. Tra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nano letters 2023-02, Vol.23 (4), p.1229-1235
Main Authors: Veyrat, Arthur, Labracherie, Valentin, Bashlakov, Dima, Caglieris, Federico, Facio, Jorge, Shipunov, Grigory, Charvin, Titouan, Acharya, Rohith, Naidyuk, Yurii, Giraud, Romain, van den Brink, Jeroen, Büchner, Bernd, Hess, Christian, Aswartham, Saicharan, Dufouleur, Joseph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed Matter
Physics
Superconductivity
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Symmetry breaking in topological matter has become in recent years a key concept in condensed matter physics to unveil novel electronic states. In this work, we predict that broken inversion symmetry and strong spin–orbit coupling in trigonal PtBi2 lead to a type-I Weyl semimetal band structure. Transport measurements show an unusually robust low dimensional superconductivity in thin exfoliated flakes up to 126 nm in thickness (with Tc ∼ 275–400 mK), which constitutes the first report and study of unambiguous superconductivity in a type-I Weyl semimetal. Remarkably, a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition with TBKT ∼ 310 mK is revealed in up to 60 nm thick flakes, which is nearly an order of magnitude thicker than the rare examples of two-dimensional superconductors exhibiting such a transition. This makes PtBi2 an ideal platform to study low dimensional and unconventional superconductivity in topological semimetals.
ISSN:1530-6984
1530-6992
DOI:10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c04297