Strong-coupling d-wave superconductivity in PuCoGa5 probed by point-contact spectroscopy

D. Daghero, M. Tortello, G.A. Ummarino, J.-C. Griveau, E. Colineau, R. Eloirdi, A.B. Shick, J. Kolorenc, A.I. Lichtenstein and R. Caciuffo ()
Additional contact information
D. Daghero: Politecnico di Torino
M. Tortello: Politecnico di Torino
G.A. Ummarino: Politecnico di Torino
J.-C. Griveau: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements
E. Colineau: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements
R. Eloirdi: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements
A.B. Shick: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements
J. Kolorenc: Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
A.I. Lichtenstein: University of Hamburg, Institute of Theoretical Physics
R. Caciuffo: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Superconductivity is due to an attractive interaction between electrons that, below a critical temperature, drives them to form Cooper pairs and to condense into a ground state separated by an energy gap from the unpaired states. In the simplest cases, the pairing is mediated by lattice vibrations and the wavefunction of the pairs is isotropic. Less conventional pairing mechanisms can favour more exotic symmetries of the Cooper pairs. Here, we report on point-contact spectroscopy measurements in PuCoGa5, a moderate heavy-fermion superconductor with a record high critical temperature Tc=18.5 K. The results prove that the wavefunction of the paired electrons has a d-wave symmetry, with four lobes and nodes, and show that the pairing is likely to be mediated by spin fluctuations. Electronic structure calculations, which take into account the full structure of the f-orbital multiplets of Pu, provide a hint of the possible origin of these fluctuations.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1785 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1785

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1785

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().