Discovery of a nonsymmorphic superconductor with spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking and nontrivial zero modes

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a nonsymmorphic superconductor, PtPb4, exhibiting spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking and zero-energy modes, providing a new platform for topological superconductivity and Majorana quasiparticles.

Contribution

The identification of PtPb4 as a nonsymmorphic superconductor with symmetry-breaking and zero modes is a novel experimental realization of topological superconductivity.

Findings

PtPb4 exhibits twofold anisotropy in resistivity and critical field.

Scanning tunneling microscopy shows twofold-symmetric vortices.

Zero-energy vortex bound states suggest Majorana modes.

Abstract

Topological superconductivity has attracted great interest due to its fundamental significance for realizing Majorana quasiparticles and fault-tolerant quantum computation. Nonsymmorphic superconductors, with symmetry-protected nontrivial electronic structures, offer a promising route to exotic topological superconducting states, yet experimental realizations remain scarce. Here we identify nonsymmorphic compound PtPb4 as a robust platform hosting superconductivity with spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking and nontrivial zero-energy modes. PtPb4 crystallizes in a frustrated Shastry-Sutherland lattice and exhibits nontrivial band topology. By combining in-plane and out-of-plane resistivity measurements, pronounced twofold anisotropy is observed in both the superconducting state and the upper critical field, evidencing spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking. Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy further reveal twofold-symmetric magnetic vortices, providing direct real-space evidence for the symmetry-broken superconducting state. Notably, a robust zero-energy vortex bound state emerges and persists without spatial splitting over extended distances, consistent with the characteristics expected for Majorana bound state. These findings uncover an exotic superconducting state in PtPb4 and establish a promising platform for exploring topological superconductivity and superconducting quantum devices.