Kengle C S, Vonka J, Francoual S, Chang J, Abbamonte P, Janoschek M, Rosa P F S, Simeth W
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
Department of Physics and Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
Nat Commun. 2024 Nov 9;15(1):9713. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53739-8.
A spatially modulated superconducting state, known as pair density wave (PDW), is a tantalizing state of matter with unique properties. Recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) studies revealed that spin-triplet superconductor UTe hosts an unprecedented spin-triplet, multi-component PDW whose three wavevectors are indistinguishable from a preceding charge-density wave (CDW) order that survives to temperatures well above the superconducting critical temperature, T. Whether the PDW is the mother or a subordinate order remains unsettled. Here, based on a systematic search for bulk charge order above T using resonant elastic X-ray scattering (REXS), we show that the structure factor of charge order previously identified by STM is absent in the bulk within the sensitivity of REXS. Our results invite two scenarios: either the density-wave orders condense simultaneously at T in the bulk, in which case PDW order is likely the mother phase, or the charge modulations are restricted to the surface.
一种被称为配对密度波（PDW）的空间调制超导态是一种具有独特性质的诱人物质状态。最近的扫描隧道显微镜（STM）研究表明，自旋三重态超导体UTe呈现出一种前所未有的自旋三重态多分量PDW，其三个波矢与一种在远高于超导临界温度T时仍存在的先前电荷密度波（CDW）序难以区分。PDW是母序还是从属序仍未确定。在此，基于使用共振弹性X射线散射（REXS）对高于T的体电荷序进行的系统搜索，我们表明在REXS的灵敏度范围内，体中不存在先前由STM识别出的电荷序结构因子。我们的结果引出两种情况：要么密度波序在体中于T时同时凝聚，在这种情况下PDW序可能是母相，要么电荷调制局限于表面。
