Novel superconducting phenomena in quasi-one-dimensional Bechgaard salts

TL;DR

This paper explores the unique superconducting properties of quasi-one-dimensional Bechgaard salts, especially (TMTSF)2ClO4, highlighting experimental evidence for nodal d-wave symmetry in their superconducting gap.

Contribution

It provides new experimental insights into the superconducting phase of Bechgaard salts, emphasizing the nodal d-wave symmetry in their superconducting gap.

Findings

Evidence for nodal d-wave symmetry in the superconducting gap.

Superconductivity in (TMTSF)2ClO4 studied extensively.

Organic superconductors exhibit unique low-dimensional phenomena.

Abstract

It is the saturation of the transition temperature Tc in the range of 24 K for known materials in the late sixties which triggered the search for additional materials offering new coupling mechanisms leading in turn to higher Tc's. As a result of this stimulation, superconductivity in organic matter was discovered in tetramethyl-tetraselenafulvalene-hexafluorophosphate, (TMTSF)2PF6, in 1979, in the laboratory founded at Orsay by Professor Friedel and his colleagues in 1962. Although this conductor is a prototype example for low-dimensional physics, we mostly focus in this article on the superconducting phase of the ambient-pressure superconductor (TMTSF)2ClO4, in which the superconducting phase has been studied most intensively among the TMTSF salts. We shall present a series of experimental results supporting nodal d-wave symmetry for the superconducting gap in these prototypical quasi-one-dimensional conductors.