Condensed Matter

We show that the layered-structure BaCuS 2 is a moderately correlated electron system in which the electronic structure of the CuS layer bears a resemblance to those in both cuprates and iron-based superconductors. Theoretical calculations reveal that the in-plane d - p σ ∗ -bonding bands are isolated near the Fermi level. As the energy separation between the d and p orbitals are much smaller than those in cuprates and iron-based superconductors, BaCuS 2 is expected to be moderately correlated. We suggest that this material is an ideal system to study the competitive/collaborative nature between two distinct superconducting pairing mechanisms, namely the conventional BCS electron-phonon interaction and the electron-electron correlation, which may be helpful to establish the elusive mechanism of unconventional high-temperature superconductivity.

The band structure, density of states, and the Fermi surface of a tungsten oxide WO 2.9 with idealized crystal structure (ideal octahedra WO 6 creating a "square lattice") is obtained within the density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation. Because of the oxygen vacancies ordering this system is equivalent to the compound W 20 O 58 (Magnéli phase), which has 78 atoms in unit cell. We show that 5 d -orbitals of tungsten atoms located immediately around the voids in the zigzag chains of edge-sharing octahedra give the dominant contribution near the Fermi level. These particular tungsten atoms are responsible of a low-energy properties of the system.

Symmetry breaking in topological matter became, in the last decade, a key concept in condensed matter physics to unveil novel electronic states. In this work, we reveal that broken inversion symmetry and strong spin-orbit coupling in trigonal \ce{PtBi2} lead to a Weyl semimetal band structure, with unusually robust two-dimensional superconductivity in thin fims. Transport measurements show that high-quality \ce{PtBi2} crystals are three-dimensional superconductors ( T c ??600~mK) with an isotropic critical field ( B c ??50~mT). Remarkably, we evidence in a rather thick flake (60~nm), exfoliated from a macroscopic crystal, the two-dimensional nature of the superconducting state, with a critical temperature T c ??70 ~mK and highly-anisotropic critical fields. Our results reveal a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition with T BKT ??10 ~mK and with a broadening of Tc due to inhomogenities in the sample. Due to the very long superconducting coherence length ξ in \ce{PtBi2}, the vortex-antivortex pairing mechanism can be studied in unusually-thick samples (at least five times thicker than for any other two-dimensional superconductor), making \ce{PtBi2} an ideal platform to study low dimensional superconductivity in a topological semimetal.

We construct a theory for the semiclassical dynamics of superconducting quasiparticles by following their wave-packet motion and reveal rich contents of Berry curvature effects in the phase-space spanned by position and momentum. These Berry curvatures are traced back to the characteristics of superconductivity, including the nontrivial momentum-space geometry of superconducting pairing, the real-space supercurrent, and the charge dipole of quasiparticles. The Berry-curvature effects strongly influence the spectroscopic and transport properties of superconductors, such as the local density of states and the thermal Hall conductivity. As a model illustration, we apply the theory to study the twisted bilayer graphene with a d x 2 + y 2 +i d xy superconducting gap function, and demonstrate Berry-curvature induced effects.

Two of the most prominent phases of bosonic matter are the superfluid with perfect flow and the insulator with no flow. A now decades-old mystery unexpectedly arose when experimental observations indicated that bosons could organize otherwise into the formation of an entirely different intervening third phase: the Bose metal with dissipative flow. The most viable theory for such a Bose metal to-date invokes the use of the extrinsic property of impurity-based disorder, however a generic intrinsic quantum Bose metal state is still lacking. We propose a universal homogeneous theory for a Bose metal in which phase frustration confines the quantum coherence to a lower dimension. The result is a gapless insulator characterized by dissipative flow that vanishes in the low-energy limit. This failed insulator exemplifies a frustration-dominated regime that is only enhanced by additional scattering sources at low-energy and therefore produces a Bose metal that thrives under realistic experimental conditions.

We propose a mechanism for robust BCS-like superconductivity in graphene placed in the vicinity of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Electrons in the graphene interact with the excitations above the condensate, called Bogoliubov quasiparticles (or bogolons). It turns out that bogolon-pair-mediated interaction allows us to surpass the long-standing problem of the vanishing density of states of particles with a linear spectrum. This results in a dramatic enhancement of the superconducting properties of graphene while keeping its relativistic dispersion. We study the behavior of the superconducting gap and calculate critical temperatures in cases with single-bogolon and bogolon-pair-mediated pairing processes, accounting for the complex band structure of graphene. We also compare the critical temperature of the superconducting transition with the BKT temperature.

For strongly anisotropic time-reversal invariant (TRI) insulators in two and three dimensions, the band inversion can occur respectively at all TRI momenta of a high symmetry axis and plane. Although these classes of materials are topologically trivial as the strong and weak Z 2 indices are all trivial, they can host an even number of unprotected helical gapless edge states or surface Dirac cones on some boundaries. We show in this work that when the gapless boundary states are gapped by s ± -wave superconductivity, a boundary time-reversal invariant topological superconductor (BTRITSC) characterized by a Z 2 invariant can be realized on the corresponding boundary. Since the dimension of the BTRITSC is lower than the bulk by one, the whole system is a second-order TRI topological superconductor. When the boundary of the BTRITSC is further cut open, Majorana Kramers pairs and helical gapless Majorana modes will respectively appear at the corners and hinges of the considered sample in two and three dimensions. Furthermore, a magnetic field can gap the helical Majorana hinge modes of the three-dimensional second-order TRI topological superconductor and lead to the realization of a third-order topological superconductor with Majorana corner modes. Our proposal can potentially be realized in insulator-superconductor heterostructures and iron-based superconductors whose normal states take the desired inverted band structures.

We demonstrate highly transparent silicon-vanadium and silicon-aluminum tunnel junctions with relatively low sub-gap leakage current and discuss how a tradeoff typically encountered between transparency and leakage affects their refrigeration performance. We theoretically investigate cascaded superconducting tunnel junction refrigerators with two or more refrigeration stages. In particular, we develop an approximate method that takes into account self-heating effects, but still allows to optimize the cascade a single stage at a time. We design a cascade consisting of energy-efficient refrigeration stages, which makes cooling of, e.g., quantum devices from above 1 K to below 100 mK a realistic experimental target.

The axion, a hypothetical elementary pseudoscalar, is expected to solve the strong CP problem of QCD and is also a promising candidate for dark matter. The most sensitive axion search experiments operate at millikelvin temperatures and hence rely on instrumentation that carries signals from a system at cryogenic temperatures to room temperature instrumentation. One of the biggest limiting factors affecting the parameter scanning speed of these detectors is the noise added by the components in the signal detection chain. Since the first amplifier in the chain limits the minimum noise, low-noise amplification is of paramount importance. This paper reports on the operation of a flux-driven Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) operating at around 2.3 GHz with added noise approaching the quantum limit. The JPA was employed as a first stage amplifier in an experimental setting similar to the ones used in haloscope axion detectors. By operating the JPA at a gain of 19 dB and cascading it with two cryogenic amplifiers operating at 4 K, noise temperatures as low as 120 mK were achieved for the whole signal detection chain.

Two-dimensional materials are ideal candidates to host Charge density waves (CDWs) that exhibit paramagnetic limiting behavior, similarly to the well known case of superconductors. Here we study how CDWs in two-dimensional systems can survive beyond the Pauli limit when they are subjected to a strong magnetic field by developing a generalized mean-field theory of CDWs under Zeeman fields that includes incommensurability, imperfect nesting and temperature effects and the possibility of a competing or coexisting Spin density wave (SDW) order. Our numerical calculations yield rich phase diagrams with distinct high-field phases above the Pauli limiting field. For perfectly nested commensurate CDWs, a q -modulated CDW phase that is completely analogous to the superconducting Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase appears at high-fields. In the more common case of imperfect nesting, the commensurate CDW groundstate undergoes a series of magnetic-field-induced phase transitions first into a phase where commensurate CDW and SDW coexist and subsequently into another phase where CDW and SDW acquire a q -modulation that is however distinct from the pure FFLO CDW phase. The commensurate CDW+SDW phase occurs for fields comparable to but less than the Pauli limit and survives above it. Thus this phase provides a plausible mechanism for the CDW to survive at high fields without the need of forming the more fragile FFLO phase. We suggest that the recently discovered 2D materials like the transition metal dichalcogenides offer a promising platform for observing such exotic field induced CDW phenomena.