Coupling between heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn$_5$ and antiferromagnetic metal CeIn$_3$ through the atomic interface
Abstract
To study the mutual interaction between unconventional superconductivity and magnetic order through an interface, we fabricate Kondo superlattices consisting of alternating layers of heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn and antiferromagnetic (AFM) heavy-fermion metal CeIn. The strength of the AFM fluctuations is tuned by applying hydrostatic pressure to CeCoIn/CeIn superlattices with and unit-cell-thick layers of CeCoIn and CeIn, respectively. Superconductivity in CeCoIn and AFM order in CeIn coexist in spatially separated layers. At ambient pressure, N\'{e}el temperature of the CeIn block layers (BLs) of CeCoIn(7)/CeIn shows little dependence on , in contrast to CeIn/LaIn(4) superlattices where is strongly suppressed with decreasing . This suggests that each CeIn BL is magnetically coupled by the RKKY interaction through the adjacent CeCoIn BL and a 3D magnetic state is formed. With applying pressure to CeCoIn(7)/CeIn(13), of the CeIn BLs is suppressed up to 2.4 GPa, showing a similar pressure dependence as CeIn single crystals. An analysis of upper critical field reveals that the superconductivity in the CeCoIn BLs is barely influenced by the AFM fluctuations in the CeIn BLs, even when the CeIn BLs are in the vicinity of the AFM quantum critical point. This is in stark contrast to CeCoIn/CeRhIn superlattice where the superconductivity in the CeCoIn BLs is profoundly affected by AFM fluctuations in the CeRhIn BLs. The present results show that although AFM fluctuations are injected into the CeCoIn BLs from the CeIn BLs through the interface, they barely affect the force which binds superconducting electron pairs. These results demonstrate that 2D AFM fluctuations are essentially important for the pairing interactions in CeCoIn.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1904.06937,
title = {Coupling between heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn$_5$ and antiferromagnetic metal CeIn$_3$ through the atomic interface},
author = {M. Naritsuka and S. Nakamura and Y. Kasahara and T. Terashima and R. Peters and Y. Matsuda},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.06937},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
8 pages, 9 figures