Visualizing superconductivity in a doped Weyl semimetal with broken inversion symmetry

Abstract

The Weyl semimetal MoTe2 offers a rare opportunity to study the interplay between Weyl physics and superconductivity. Recent studies have found that Se substitution can boost the superconductivity up to 1.5 K, but suppresses the Td structure phase that is essential for the emergence of the Weyl state. A microscopic understanding of the possible coexistence of enhanced superconductivity and the Td phase has not been established so far. Here, we use scanning tunneling microscopy to study an optimally doped superconductor MoTe1.85Se0.15 with bulk Tc∼1.5K. By means of quasiparticle interference imaging, we identify the existence of a low-temperature Td phase with broken inversion symmetry where superconductivity globally coexists. Furthermore, we find that the superconducting coherence length, extracted from both the upper critical field and the decay of density of states near a vortex, is much larger than the characteristic length scale of the existing chemical disorder. Our findings of robust superconductivity arising from a Weyl semimetal normal phase in MoTe1.85Se0.15 make it a promising candidate for realizing topological superconductivity.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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