Leggett Modes in Dirac Semimetals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how Leggett modes, collective oscillations between superconducting bands, can be detected in Dirac semimetals using SQUID measurements, revealing new multiband superconducting phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a method to unambiguously detect Leggett modes in Dirac semimetals through SQUID experiments, linking theory with experimental signatures.

Findings

Leggett modes observed in Cd3As2 Dirac semimetal

Unique signatures of Leggett modes identified in SQUID measurements

Confirmation of multiband superconductivity in Dirac semimetals

Abstract

In recent years experimentalists have been able to clearly show that several materials, such as MgB2, iron-based superconductors3, monolayer NbSe2, are multiband superconductors. Superconducting pairing in multiple bands can give rise to novel and very interesting phenomena. Leggett modes are exemplary of the unusual effects that can be present in multiband superconductors. A Leggett mode describes the collective periodic oscillation of the relative phase between the phases of the superconducting condensates formed by electrons in different bands. It can be thought of as the mode arising from an inter-band Josephson effect. The experimental observation of Leggett modes is challenging for several reasons: (i) Multiband superconductors are rare; (ii) they describe charge fluctuations between bands and therefore are hard to probe directly; (iii) their mass gap is often larger than the superconducting gaps and therefore are strongly overdamped via relaxation processes into the quasiparticle continuum. In this work we show that Leggett modes, and their frequency, can be detected unambigously in a.c. driven superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). We then use the results to analyze the measurements of a SQUID based on Cd3As2, an exemplar Dirac semimetal, in which superconductivity is induced by proximity to superconducting Al. The experimental results show the theoretically predicted unique signatures of Leggett modes and therefore allow us to conclude that a Leggett mode is present in the two-band superconducting state of Dirac semimetal (DSM) Cd3As2.