Tip-induced superconductivity commonly existing in the family of transition-metal dipnictides MPn2

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/abccbb

Abstract We report the tip-induced superconductivity on the topological semimetal NbSb₂, similar to the observation on TaAs₂ and NbAs₂. Belonging to the same family of MPn₂, all these materials possess similar band structures, indicating that the tip-induced superconductivity may be closely related to their topological nature and share a common mechanism. Further analysis suggests that a bulk band should play the dominant role in such local superconductivity most likely through interface coupling. In addition, the compatibility between the induced superconductivity and tips' ferromagnetism gives an evidence for its unconventional nature. These results provide further clues to elucidate the mechanism of the tip-induced superconductivity observed in topological materials.

Keywords: tip-induced superconductivity topological mechanism

Received: 30 October 2020
Revised: 13 November 2020
Accepted manuscript online: 23 November 2020

PACS:	73.40.Jn	(Metal-to-metal contacts)
	73.40.-c	(Electronic transport in interface structures)
	74.50.+r	(Tunneling phenomena; Josephson effects)
	85.30.Hi	(Surface barrier, boundary, and point contact devices)

Fund: Project supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2017YFA0302904, 2017YFA0303201, 2018YFA0305602, and 2016YFA0300604), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 12074002, 11574372, 11674331, 11804379, and 11874417), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2015CB921303), the Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grants Nos. XDB07020300, XDB07020100, and XDB33030100), the Collaborative Innovation Program of Hefei Science Center, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2020HSC-CIP002), CASHIPS Director's Fund, China (Grant No. BJPY2019B03), and the Recruitment Program for Leading Talent Team of Anhui Province, China (2019-16).

Corresponding Authors: ^†Corresponding author. E-mail: renzhian@iphy.ac.cn ^‡Corresponding author. E-mail: gfchen@iphy.ac.cn ^{§Corresponding author. E-mail: lshan@ahu.edu.cn}

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Meng-Di Zhang(张孟迪), Sheng Xu(徐升), Xing-Yuan Hou(侯兴元), Ya-Dong Gu(谷亚东), Fan Zhang(张凡), Tian-Long Xia(夏天龙), Zhi-An Ren(任治安), Gen-Fu Chen(陈根富), Ning Hao(郝宁), and Lei Shan(单磊) Tip-induced superconductivity commonly existing in the family of transition-metal dipnictides MPn₂ 2021 Chin. Phys. B 30 017304

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Tip-induced superconductivity commonly existing in the family of transition-metal dipnictides MPn₂

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