Probing p-wave superconductivity in UTe₂ via point-contact junctions

2024/03/01 by Yoon, Hyeok, Eo, Yun Suk, Park, Jihun +7 · 2 citations
#FOS: Physical sciences #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.00933

Abstract

Uranium ditelluride (UTe₂) is the strongest contender to date for a p-wave superconductor in bulk form. Here we perform a spectroscopic study of the ambient pressure superconducting phase of UTe₂, measuring conductance through point-contact junctions formed by metallic contacts on different crystalline facets down to 250 mK and up to 18 T. Fitting a range of qualitatively varying spectra with a Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk(BTK) model for p-wave pairing, we can extract gap amplitude and interface barrier strength for each junction. We find good agreement with the data for a p_y -wave gap function with amplitude in 0.26 ± 0.06 meV. Our work provides spectroscopic evidence for a gap structure consistent with the proposed spin-triplet pairing in the superconducting state of UTe₂.

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