Zhang Jia-Long, Chen Weipeng, Liu Hao-Tian, Li Yu, Wang Zhiqiang, Huang Wen
Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Shenzhen Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China.
Phys Rev Lett. 2024 Mar 29;132(13):136001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.136001.
The polar Kerr effect and the closely related anomalous charge Hall effect are among the most distinguishing signatures of the superconducting state in Sr_{2}RuO_{4}, as well as in several other compounds. These effects are often thought to be derived from chiral superconducting pairing, and different mechanisms have been invoked for the explanation. However, the intrinsic mechanisms proposed previously often involve unrealistically strong interband Cooper pairing. We show in this Letter that, even without interband pairing, nonunitary superconducting states can support the intrinsic anomalous charge Hall effect, thanks to the quantum geometric properties of the Bloch electrons. The key here is to have a normal-state spin Hall effect, for which a nonzero spin-orbit coupling is essential. A finite charge Hall effect then naturally arises at the onset of a spin-polarized nonunitary superconducting pairing. It depends on both the spin polarization and the normal-state electron Berry curvature, the latter of which is the imaginary part of the quantum geometric tensor of the Bloch states. Applying our results to the weakly paired Sr_{2}RuO_{4} we conclude that, if the reported Kerr effect is of intrinsic origin, the superconducting state is most likely nonunitary and has odd parity. Our theory may be generalized to other superconductors that exhibit the polar Kerr effect.
极化克尔效应以及与之密切相关的反常电荷霍尔效应,是Sr₂RuO₄以及其他几种化合物超导态最显著的特征之一。这些效应通常被认为源于手性超导配对,并且人们提出了不同的机制来进行解释。然而,先前提出的内在机制往往涉及不切实际的强带间库珀配对。我们在本论文中表明,即使没有带间配对,由于布洛赫电子的量子几何性质,非幺正超导态也能够支持内在反常电荷霍尔效应。这里的关键在于具有一个正常态自旋霍尔效应,对于此效应,非零的自旋轨道耦合是必不可少的。然后,在自旋极化的非幺正超导配对开始时,自然会出现有限的电荷霍尔效应。它既取决于自旋极化,也取决于正常态电子贝里曲率,后者是布洛赫态量子几何张量的虚部。将我们的结果应用于弱配对的Sr₂RuO₄,我们得出结论:如果所报道的克尔效应是源于本征的,那么超导态很可能是非幺正的且具有奇宇称。我们的理论可以推广到其他表现出极化克尔效应的超导体。