Direct evidence for two-gap superconductivity in hydrogen-intercalated titanium diselenide

TL;DR

This study provides the first direct evidence of two-gap superconductivity in hydrogen-intercalated titanium diselenide, revealing complex multi-gap behavior through comprehensive experimental techniques.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of a two-gap superconducting state in H-intercalated TiSe$_2$, a novel finding supported by multiple spectroscopic and transport measurements.

Findings

Identification of two distinct superconducting gaps

Consistent gap amplitudes across different measurement techniques

Enhanced understanding of multi-gap superconductivity in TMDs

Abstract

Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) offer an extremely rich material platform in the exploration of unconventional superconductivity. The unconventional aspects include exotic coupling mechanisms such as the Ising pairing, a complex interplay with other electronic orders such as charge-density waves (CDWs), symmetry-breaking and topological effects, and non-trivial gap structures such as multi-gap and possible nodal phases. Among TMDs, titanium diselenide (1$T$-TiSe$_2$) is one of the most studied and debated cases. Hints to an anomalous structure of its superconducting order parameter have emerged over the years, possibly linked to its spatial texturing in real and reciprocal space due to the presence of a 2$\times$2$\times$2 CDW phase, or to a pressure-driven multi-band Fermi surface. However, a direct evidence for a non-trivial structure of the superconducting gap in this material is still lacking. In this work, we bring the first evidence for a two-gap structure in the recently-discovered H-intercalated TiSe$_2$ superconductor (with T$_c \simeq 3.6$ K) by an extensive experimental study that combines magnetotransport measurements, point-contact spectroscopy and scanning tunnel spectroscopy. We show that the temperature dependence of the upper critical field (for $\vec B \parallel c$) as well as the shape of the point-contact and tunneling spectra strongly suggest the existence of two distinct superconducting gaps, and can indeed all be fitted in a self-consistent way with the same gap amplitudes $\Delta_1 = 0.26 \pm 0.12$ meV and $\Delta_2 =0.62 \pm 0.18$ meV.