Multiphase superconductivity in PdBi2

Lewis Powell (), Wenjun Kuang, Gabriel Hawkins-Pottier, Rashid Jalil, John Birkbeck, Ziyi Jiang, Minsoo Kim, Yichao Zou, Sofiia Komrakova, Sarah Haigh, Ivan Timokhin, Geetha Balakrishnan, Andre K. Geim, Niels Walet, Alessandro Principi () and Irina V. Grigorieva ()
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Lewis Powell: University of Manchester
Wenjun Kuang: University of Manchester
Gabriel Hawkins-Pottier: University of Manchester
Rashid Jalil: University of Manchester
John Birkbeck: University of Manchester
Ziyi Jiang: University of Manchester
Minsoo Kim: University of Manchester
Yichao Zou: University of Manchester
Sofiia Komrakova: University of Manchester
Sarah Haigh: University of Manchester
Ivan Timokhin: University of Manchester
Geetha Balakrishnan: University of Warwick
Andre K. Geim: University of Manchester
Niels Walet: University of Manchester
Alessandro Principi: University of Manchester
Irina V. Grigorieva: University of Manchester

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Unconventional superconductivity, where electron pairing does not involve electron-phonon interactions, is often attributed to magnetic correlations in a material. Well known examples include high-Tc cuprates and uranium-based heavy fermion superconductors. Less explored are unconventional superconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling, where interactions between spin-polarised electrons and external magnetic field can result in multiple superconducting phases and field-induced transitions between them, a rare phenomenon in the superconducting state. Here we report a magnetic-field driven phase transition in β-PdBi2, a layered non-magnetic superconductor. Our tunnelling spectroscopy on thin PdBi2 monocrystals incorporated in planar superconductor-insulator-normal metal junctions reveals a marked discontinuity in the superconducting properties with increasing in-plane field, which is consistent with a transition from conventional (s-wave) to nodal pairing. Our theoretical analysis suggests that this phase transition may arise from spin polarisation and spin-momentum locking caused by locally broken inversion symmetry, with p-wave pairing becoming energetically favourable in high fields. Our findings also reconcile earlier predictions of unconventional multigap superconductivity in β-PdBi2 with previous experiments where only a single s-wave gap could be detected.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54867-x

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