Highly Anisotropic Gap Function in Borocarbide Superconductor LuNi2B2C

Etienne Boaknin; R. W. Hill; Cyril Proust; C. Lupien; Louis Taillefer; P. C. Canfield

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.237001

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Highly Anisotropic Gap Function in Borocarbide Superconductor LuNi2B2C

Etienne Boaknin, R. W. Hill, Cyril Proust, C. Lupien, Louis Taillefer, P. C. Canfield

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.237001 · Physical Review Letters

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Abstract

The thermal conductivity of borocarbide superconductor LuNi2B2C was measured down to 70 mK (Tc/200) in a magnetic field perpendicular to the heat current from H=0 to above Hc2=7T. As soon as vortices enter the sample, the conduction at T→0 grows rapidly, showing unambiguously that delocalized quasiparticles are present at the lowest energies. The field dependence is very similar to that of UPt3, a heavy-fermion superconductor with a line of nodes in the gap, and very different from the exponential dependence characteristic of s-wave superconductors. This is strong evidence for a highly anisotropic gap function in LuNi2B2C, possibly with nodes.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
LuNi2B2C Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	16	Pressure not reported	unknown
LuNi2B2C Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	16	Pressure not reported	unknown
UPt3 Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	—	Pressure not reported	unknown
YBa2Cu3O7 Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	—	Pressure not reported	unknown
Sr2RuO4 Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	—	Pressure not reported	unknown
YNi2B2C Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	15.5	Pressure not reported	unknown
V3Si Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	16.5	Pressure not reported	unknown