Skip to Content

Coexistence of Superconductivity and Magnetism

The Cooper pairs in most known superconductors are formed from electrons that have opposite momentum and spin. A ferromagnet, on the other hand, is a material where there is a dominance of electrons of one spin with respect to the other. What happens if we put these two phenomena together in a single material? Such is the case in the curious compound EuRbFe4As4, which displays superconducting order at a temperature of 35 K, and displays magnetic order at a lower temperature of 16 K. In this compound, superconductivity lives in atomic planes of FeAs, while the magnetism lives in adjacent layers of Eu. Electrons can jump from from one layer to the other, coupling the superconducting and magnetic properties to each other. I will describe scanning tunneling microscopy measurements that probe the consequences of this coupling, including the formation of superconducting order that is modulated in space, as well as an unusual set of excitations that exist in the magnetic superconducting state.

Host: Arun Paramekanti
Event series  Toronto Quantum Matter Seminars