New pair density wave behaviour found in a candidate superconductor

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Physicists have spotted a new kind of superconductor behaviour that had never been convincingly seen before. ScienceAlert's David Nield reports on work by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team studying the surface of uranium ditelluride. The results are published in PNAS

Uranium ditelluride is a candidate spin triplet superconductor, which means the paired electrons that carry current may behave differently from those in ordinary superconductors. It becomes superconducting below about 2.1 kelvin, which is extremely cold

The team found pair density waves on the material's surface. These are ripple like ordered patterns of Cooper pairs, the electron pairs behind superconductivity, and they were first predicted in 2007. Using a higher quality sample and a specialised scanning tunnelling microscope with a vector magnet, the researchers saw the patterns persist above the temperature at which superconductivity disappears

That is an unusual and exciting observation, although it does not mean the material superconducts at higher temperatures. Eduardo Fradkin, one of the theorists behind the original prediction, is quoted. The work builds on earlier signs reported in Nature in 2023

Spin triplet superconductors are of great interest because they may host exotic states useful for topological quantum computing. That link is still speculative, but understanding these materials could matter for future qubits. Fundamental materials research often pays off in unexpected ways

Could spin triplet superconductors play a role in future quantum computers? And how important is basic materials research for quantum technology?

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