Inhomogeneous high temperature melting and decoupling of charge density waves in spin-triplet superconductor UTe2

Journal Article · 25 May 2024 · Nature Communications

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48844-7 · OSTI ID:2367205

LaFleur, Alexander; Li, Hong ; Frank, Corey E.; Xu, Muxian; Cheng, Siyu ; Wang, Ziqiang ; Butch, Nicholas P.; Zeljkovic, Ilija

Abstract Charge, spin and Cooper-pair density waves have now been widely detected in exotic superconductors. Understanding how these density waves emerge — and become suppressed by external parameters — is a key research direction in condensed matter physics. Here we study the temperature and magnetic-field evolution of charge density waves in the rare spin-triplet superconductor candidate UTe ₂ using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. We reveal that charge modulations composed of three different wave vectors gradually weaken in a spatially inhomogeneous manner, while persisting to surprisingly high temperatures of 10–12 K. We also reveal an unexpected decoupling of the three-component charge density wave state. Our observations match closely to the temperature scale potentially related to short-range magnetic correlations, providing a possible connection between density waves observed by surface probes and intrinsic bulk features. Importantly, charge density wave modulations become suppressed with magnetic field both below and above superconducting T _c in a comparable manner. Our work points towards an intimate connection between hidden magnetic correlations and the origin of the unusual charge density waves in UTe ₂ .

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0020130
• OSTI ID: 2367205
• Journal Information: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 15; ISSN 2041-1723
• Publisher: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United Kingdom
• Language: English