Superconductivity in rhombohedral trilayer graphene

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of superconductivity in rhombohedral trilayer graphene, revealing two distinct superconducting phases arising from unique normal states, with detailed analysis of their properties and potential mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed observation of superconductivity in rhombohedral trilayer graphene, including characterization of two distinct phases and their underlying normal states.

Findings

Superconductivity occurs in two regions, SC1 and SC2, in gate-tuned charge density and electric field.

Superconductivity arises from an annular Fermi sea near an isospin symmetry breaking transition.

Superconductivity in SC2 exceeds the Pauli limit by at least an order of magnitude.

Abstract

We report the observation of superconductivity in rhombohedral trilayer graphene electrostatically doped with holes. Superconductivity occurs in two distinct regions within the space of gate-tuned charge carrier density and applied electric displacement field, which we denote SC1 and SC2. The high sample quality allows for detailed mapping of the normal state Fermi surfaces by quantum oscillations, which reveal that in both cases superconductivity arises from a normal state described by an annular Fermi sea that is proximal to an isospin symmetry breaking transition where the Fermi surface degeneracy changes. The upper out-of-plane critical field $B_{C\perp}\approx 10 \mathrm{mT}$ for SC1 and $1\mathrm{mT}$ for SC2, implying coherence lengths $\xi$ of 200nm and 600nm, respectively. The simultaneous observation of transverse magnetic electron focusing implies a mean free path $\ell\gtrsim3.5\mathrm{\mu m}$. Superconductivity is thus deep in the clean limit, with the disorder parameter $d=\xi/\ell<0.1$. SC1 emerge from a paramagnetic normal state and is suppressed with in-plane magnetic fields in agreement with the Pauli paramagnetic limit. In contrast, SC2 emerges from a spin-polarized, valley-unpolarized half-metal. Measurements of the in-plane critical field show that this superconductor exceeds the Pauli limit by at least one order of magnitude. We discuss our results in light of several mechanisms including conventional phonon-mediated pairing, pairing due to fluctuations of the proximal isospin order, and intrinsic instabilities of the annular Fermi liquid. Our observation of superconductivity in a clean and structurally simple two-dimensional metal hosting a variety of gate tuned magnetic states may enable a new class of field-effect controlled mesoscopic electronic devices combining correlated electron phenomena.