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Nodeless electron pairing in CsV$_3$Sb$_5$-derived kagome superconductors

Superconductivity 2023-05-22 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

The newly discovered kagome superconductors represent a promising platform for investigating the interplay between band topology, electronic order, and lattice geometry. Despite extensive research efforts on this system, the nature of the superconducting ground state remains elusive. In particular, consensus on the electron pairing symmetry has not been achieved so far, in part owing to the lack of a momentum-resolved measurement of the superconducting gap structure. Here we report the direct observation of a nodeless, nearly isotropic, and orbital-independent superconducting gap in the momentum space of two exemplary CsV3_3Sb5_5-derived kagome superconductors -- Cs(V0.93_{0.93}Nb0.07_{0.07})3_3Sb5_5 and Cs(V0.86_{0.86}Ta0.14_{0.14})3_3Sb5_5, using ultrahigh resolution and low-temperature angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Remarkably, such a gap structure is robust to the appearance or absence of charge order in the normal state, tuned by isovalent Nb/Ta substitutions of V. Moreover, we observe a signature of the time-reversal symmetry (TRS) breaking inside the superconducting state, which extends the previous observation of TRS-breaking CDW in the kagome lattice. Our comprehensive characterizations of the superconducting state provide indispensable information on the electron pairing of kagome superconductors, and advance our understanding of unconventional superconductivity and intertwined electronic orders.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.00875,
  title  = {Nodeless electron pairing in CsV$_3$Sb$_5$-derived kagome superconductors},
  author = {Yigui Zhong and Jinjin Liu and Xianxin Wu and Zurab Guguchia and J. -X. Yin and Akifumi Mine and Yongkai Li and Sahand Najafzadeh and Debarchan Das and Charles Mielke and Rustem Khasanov and Hubertus Luetkens and Takeshi Suzuki and Kecheng Liu and Xinloong Han and Takeshi Kondo and Jiangping Hu and Shik Shin and Zhiwei Wang and Xun Shi and Yugui Yao and Kozo Okazaki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.00875},
  year   = {2023}
}