Phase crystals
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2020

Superconductivity owes its properties to the phase of the electron pair condensate that breaks the U(1) symmetry. In the most traditional ground state, the phase is uniform and rigid. The normal state can be unstable towards special inhomogeneous superconducting states: the Abrikosov vortex state and the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state. Here we show that the phase-uniform superconducting state can go into a fundamentally different and more ordered nonuniform ground state, which we refer to as a phase crystal. This state breaks translational invariance through formation of a spatially periodic modulation of the phase, manifested by unusual superflow patterns and circulating currents, that also break time-reversal symmetry. We list the general conditions needed for realization of phase crystals. Using microscopic theory, we then derive an analytic expression for the superfluid density tensor for the case of a nonuniform environment in a semi-infinite superconductor. We demonstrate how the surface quasiparticle states enter the superfluid density and identify phase crystallization as the main player in several previous numerical observations in unconventional superconductors, and predict the existence of a similar phenomenon in superconductor-ferromagnetic structures. This analytic approach provides a unifying aspect for the exploration of boundary-induced quasiparticles and collective excitations in superconductors. More generally, we trace the origin of phase crystallization to nonlocal properties of the gradient energy, which implies the existence of similar pattern-forming instabilities in many other contexts.

Författare

Patric Holmvall

Chalmers, Mikroteknologi och nanovetenskap, Tillämpad kvantfysik

Mikael Fogelström

Chalmers, Mikroteknologi och nanovetenskap

Tomas Löfwander

Chalmers, Mikroteknologi och nanovetenskap, Tillämpad kvantfysik

Anton Vorontsov

Montana State University

Physical Review Research

26431564 (ISSN)

Vol. 2 1 013104

Styrkeområden

Nanovetenskap och nanoteknik

Materialvetenskap

Ämneskategorier

Fysik

Atom- och molekylfysik och optik

Annan fysik

Den kondenserade materiens fysik

Fundament

Grundläggande vetenskaper

Infrastruktur

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.013104

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2024-01-03