Impact of the spin-orbit interaction on the phase diagram and anisotropy of the in-plane critical magnetic field in superconducting LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interface

TL;DR

This paper investigates how spin-orbit interaction influences the phase diagram and anisotropy of the in-plane critical magnetic field in superconducting LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃ interfaces, revealing enhanced effects and anisotropic behavior consistent with experiments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the impact of atomic and Rashba spin-orbit coupling on the superconducting phase diagram and magnetic field anisotropy in LAO/STO interfaces, extending previous models.

Findings

Spin-orbit splitting enhances the misalignment between optimal carrier concentration and Lifshitz transition.

Superconductivity occurs when the Fermi level passes the anticrossing due to spin-orbital hybridization.

The in-plane critical magnetic field exhibits four-fold anisotropy and exceeds paramagnetic limits along high symmetry directions.

Abstract

The two-dimensional electron gas at the interface between LaAlO$_3$ and SrTiO$_3$ (LAO/STO) exhibits gate tunable superconductivity with a characteristic dome-like shape of the critical temperature ($T_c$) in the phase diagram. As shown recently [Phys. Rev. B 102, 085420 (2020)], such an effect can be explained as a consequence of the extended $s-$wave symmetry of the gap within an intersite real space pairing scenario, leading to a good agreement between the experiment and theory. In this work, we turn to a detailed analysis of the influence of spin-orbit coupling on the LAO/STO phase diagram by considering the atomic and the Rashba components. In particular, we analyze the optimal carrier concentration for which the maximal $T_c$ is reached relative to the Lifshitz transition point. We find that the a misalignment between the two can be significantly enhanced by the spin-orbit splitting of the bands, combined with the fact that superconductivity sets in when the Fermi level passes the anticrossing induced by the spin-orbital hybridization. In the presence of the external in-plane magnetic field, our calculations show four-fold anisotropy with the paramagnetic limit largely exceeded for $B_{||}$ directed along the high symmetry points [01] and [01]. The obtained electron concentration dependence of $B_{c||}$ reproduces the characteristic dome-like shape reported in experiments and the estimated value of $B_{c||}$ corresponds to that measured experimentally.