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Free keywords:
Focused ion beam, Superconductivity, Weyl semimetal
Abstract:
The motivation to search for signatures of superconductivity inWeyl semi-metals and other topological phases lies in their potential for hosting exotic phenomena such as nonzero-momentum pairing or the Majorana fermion, a viable candidate for the ultimate realization of a scalable quantum computer. Until now, however, all known reports of superconductivity in type-IWeyl semi-metals have arisen through surface contact with a sharp tip, focused ion-beam surface treatment or the application of high pressures. Here, we demonstrate the observation of superconductivity in single crystals, even an as-grown crystal, of the Weyl semi-metal tantalum phosphide (TaP), at ambient pressure. A superconducting transition temperature, Tc, varying between 1.7 and 5.3 K, is observed in different samples, both as-grown and microscopic samples processed with focused ion beam (FIB) etching. Our data show that the superconductivity present in the as-grown crystal is inhomogeneous yet three-dimensional. For samples fabricated with FIB, we observe, in addition to the three-dimensional superconductivity, a second superconducting phase that resides on the sample surface. Through measurements of the characteristic fields as a function of temperature and angle, we are able to confirm the dimensionality of the two distinct superconducting phases. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
