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Optically probed superconductor
The exotic superconductor UPt3 has two superconducting phases that appear at different temperatures, but their nature remains unclear. Schemm et al. shone circularly polarized light on a crystal of UPt3 and studied its reflection (see the Perspective by van der Marel and Sawatzky). In the low-temperature phase, the pairs of electrons that make the material superconducting have a handedness to them. The finding narrows down the possible descriptions of the electron-pair wave function.
Abstract
Models of superconductivity in unconventional materials can be experimentally differentiated by the predictions they make for the symmetries of the superconducting order parameter. In the case of the heavy-fermion superconductor UPt3, a key question is whether its multiple superconducting phases preserve or break time-reversal symmetry (TRS). We tested for asymmetry in the phase shift between left and right circularly polarized light reflected from a single crystal of UPt3 at normal incidence and found that this so-called polar Kerr effect appears only below the lower of the two zero-field superconducting transition temperatures. Our results provide evidence for broken TRS in the low-temperature superconducting phase of UPt3, implying a complex two-component order parameter for superconductivity in this system.
