2025/12/03 by P. García-Campos, Pablo Garcia-Campos, García-Campos, P. +10 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Rare-earth and actinide compounds
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.03908
Superconductivity is characterized by vanishing electrical resistance and magnetic flux expulsion. For conventional type II superconductors, the magnetic flux expulsion is incomplete in an applied magnetic field above a critical value and magnetic flux penetrates the bulk of the superconductor in discrete quantized magnetic flux tubes (vortices), each carrying a single quantum of flux (h/2e). Investigating the unconventional superconductor UPt3 with a scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) microscope, we observed mobile half-quantum vortices together with one quantum vortices. Cooling the material under a higher magnetic field revealed the presence of lines of magnetic contrast resembling domain walls. These observations agree with theoretical predictions for chiral superconductivity with a two dimensional complex order-parameter with sheets of half-quantum vortices separating domains of opposite order-parameter chirality.