- Letter
Exotic heavy-fermion superconductivity in atomically thin films
Phys. Rev. B 107, L041101 – Published 5 January, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.L041101
Abstract
We report an in situ scanning tunneling microscopy study of atomically thin films of , a -wave heavy-fermion superconductor. Both hybridization and superconducting gaps are observed even in monolayer , providing direct evidence of superconductivity of heavy quasiparticles mediated by purely two-dimensional bosonic excitations. In these atomically thin films, is suppressed to nearly half of the bulk, but is similar to superlattices containing layers with the same thickness as the thin films. Remarkably, the out-of-plane upper critical field at zero temperature is largely enhanced from those of bulk and superlattices. The enhanced well exceeds the Pauli and bulk orbital limits, suggesting the possible emergence of unusual superconductivity with parity mixing caused by the inversion symmetry breaking.