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Published on: July 28, 2023
Yin-Yang vortex on UTe2 (011) surface
Ruotong Yin1, Yuanji Li1, Zengyi Du2
1Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
None:
UTe2 is a candidate spin-triplet superconductor, yet its superconducting state remains debated. Using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy, we observe a novel magnetic vortex with distinct dark-bright contrast in local density of states on UTe2 (011) surface under perpendicular magnetic fields, resembling the Yin-Yang diagram in Taoism. Each vortex carries a quantized magnetic flux, and the boundary between the two parts aligns with crystallographic a-axis. The vortex states exhibit intriguing behaviors -- the Yang part exhibits a sharp zero-energy conductance peak, whereas the Yin part shows a superconducting gap with pronounced coherence peaks, sharper than those without fields. Theoretical analysis attributes this pattern to vortex-induced asymmetric suppression of topological surface states caused by the tilted Fermi surface, constraining possible d-vector orientations. Our findings constitute distinctive evidence for spin-triplet pairing in UTe2, and provide new avenues for exploring the interplay between surface states and vortex-bound states in topological superconductors.
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