$c$-axis transport in ${\mathrm{UTe}}_{2}$: Evidence of three-dimensional conductivity component

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$c$ -axis transport in ${UTe}_{2}$ : Evidence of three-dimensional conductivity component

Yun Suk Eo, Shouzheng Liu, Shanta R. Saha, Hyunsoo Kim, Sheng Ran, Jarryd A. Horn, Halyna Hodovanets, John Collini, Tristin Metz, Wesley T. Fuhrman, Andriy H. Nevidomskyy, Jonathan D. Denlinger, Nicholas P. Butch, Michael S. Fuhrer, L. Andrew Wray, and Johnpierre Paglione

Phys. Rev. B 106, L060505 – Published 24 August 2022

Abstract

We study the temperature dependence of electrical resistivity for currents directed along all crystallographic axes of the spin-triplet superconductor ${UTe}_{2}$ . We focus particularly on an accurate determination of the resistivity along the $c$ axis ( $ρ_{c}$ ) by using a generalized Montgomery technique that allows extraction of crystallographic resistivity components from a single sample. In contrast to expectations from the observed highly anisotropic band structure, our measurement of the absolute values of resistivities in all current directions reveals a surprisingly nearly isotropic transport behavior at temperatures above Kondo coherence, with $ρ_{c} \sim ρ_{b} \sim 2 ρ_{a}$ , that evolves to reveal qualitatively distinct behaviors on cooling. The temperature dependence of $ρ_{c}$ exhibits a peak at a temperature much lower than the onset of Kondo coherence observed in $ρ_{a}$ and $ρ_{b}$ , consistent with features in magnetotransport and magnetization that point to a magnetic origin. A comparison to the temperature-dependent evolution of the scattering rate observed in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments provides important insights into the underlying electronic structure necessary for building a microscopic model of superconductivity in ${UTe}_{2}$ .

Received 25 January 2021
Accepted 1 August 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.L060505

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Spin-triplet pairing Superconductivity Transport phenomena

Ferromagnetic superconductors Heavy-fermion systems

Transport techniques

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Yun Suk Eo ¹, Shouzheng Liu², Shanta R. Saha¹, Hyunsoo Kim^1,*, Sheng Ran^1,3,†, Jarryd A. Horn ¹, Halyna Hodovanets ^1,*, John Collini¹, Tristin Metz¹, Wesley T. Fuhrman¹, Andriy H. Nevidomskyy⁴, Jonathan D. Denlinger⁵, Nicholas P. Butch^1,3, Michael S. Fuhrer^6,7, L. Andrew Wray², and Johnpierre Paglione ^1,8,‡

¹Maryland Quantum Materials Center and Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
²Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA
³NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA
⁴Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
⁵Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
⁶School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
⁷ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
⁸Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1Z8

^*Present Address: Department of Physics, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri 65409, USA.
^†Present address: Department of Physics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA.
^‡paglione@umd.edu

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Vol. 106, Iss. 6 — 1 August 2022

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Figure 1
${UTe}_{2}$ crystal structure and Fermi surface. (a) Crystal structure of ${UTe}_{2}$ ; $a = 4.161$ Å, $b = 6.122$ Å, $c = 13.955$ Å. (b) Schematic picture of the rectangular Fermi pockets (shown in blue) in the $a - b$ plane of the BZ (based on Ref. [20]). (c) Schematic picture of the $Z$ pocket in the presence of the less dispersive rectangular pocket in the $a - c$ plane of the BZ (based on Ref. [20]).
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Figure 2
Electrical resistivity of ${UTe}_{2}$ extracted using a generalized Montgomery measurement technique on two crystalline samples, including a diamond-shaped sample with $b - c$ plane orientation (sample S1) and a nearly-rectangular-shaped sample with $a - c$ plane orientation (sample S2). Absolute resistivities are obtained by extracting principal components of resistivities from a combination of resistance measurement geometries and numerical modeling (see SM [29] for more details, including extracted $ρ_{c}$ data for sample S2 and sample photos in Fig. S3).
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Figure 3
Temperature dependence of ARPES. (a) An ARPES image of the ${UTe}_{2} 6 d$ bands, measured at 20 K along the $Γ - X$ axis at $h ν = 74$ eV, in normal emission from the [011] crystal face. (b) Temperature (Temp) dependence of quasielastically scattered photoelectrons. ARPES intensity on the uranium O-edge resonance ( $h ν = 110$ eV) was integrated in a region with no visible bands [from $k = 0.6$ Å $^{- 1}$ to $k = 1.0$ Å $^{- 1}$ ]. (c) Momentum distribution curves (MDCs) of $6 d$ band electrons at 25 meV, measured at $h ν = 74$ eV and temperatures of 20, 30, 40, 50, and 65 K, from top to bottom. (d) The feature width from Lorentzian fits (see SM [29] Sec. VII for details) of the MDCs in (c), used for comparison with resistivity (see text).
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Figure 4
Low-temperature resistivity of ${UTe}_{2}$ , exhibiting Fermi liquid behavior for all three crystallographic orientations. Data were obtained from four-wire measurements on bar-shaped samples (samples S3, S5, and S6).
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Figure 5
Magnetotransport results at 14 T. (a) $ρ_{a}$ vs temperature for both fixed at 0 T (in black), $H ∥ a$ at 14 T (in red), and $H ∥ b$ at 14 T (in blue). Data were taken using bar-shaped sample S7. (b) $ρ_{c}$ vs temperature for both fixed at 0 T (in black), $H ∥ a$ at 14 T (in red), and $H ∥ b$ at 14 T (in blue). Data were taken using bar-shaped sample S3. (c) MR vs temperature and $Δ M_{a} / H_{a}$ . Field is applied along the $a$ -axis direction. (d) MR vs temperature and $Δ M / H_{b}$ . Field is applied along the $b$ -axis direction. Comparison of magnetoresistance for both $ρ_{a}$ and $ρ_{c}$ samples and $Δ M / H$ . Magnetoresistance (MR) is defined as $MR = [ρ (14 T) - ρ (0 T)] / ρ (0 T)$ and $Δ M / H = χ_{CW} - M / H (14 T)$ , where $χ_{CW}$ is the Curie-Weiss susceptibility fitted at high temperatures.
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Physical Review B

covering condensed matter and materials physics

$c$ -axis transport in ${UTe}_{2}$ : Evidence of three-dimensional conductivity component

Yun Suk Eo, Shouzheng Liu, Shanta R. Saha, Hyunsoo Kim, Sheng Ran, Jarryd A. Horn, Halyna Hodovanets, John Collini, Tristin Metz, Wesley T. Fuhrman, Andriy H. Nevidomskyy, Jonathan D. Denlinger, Nicholas P. Butch, Michael S. Fuhrer, L. Andrew Wray, and Johnpierre Paglione

Phys. Rev. B 106, L060505 – Published 24 August 2022

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Physical Review B

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c-axis transport in UTe2: Evidence of three-dimensional conductivity component

Yun Suk Eo, Shouzheng Liu, Shanta R. Saha, Hyunsoo Kim, Sheng Ran, Jarryd A. Horn, Halyna Hodovanets, John Collini, Tristin Metz, Wesley T. Fuhrman, Andriy H. Nevidomskyy, Jonathan D. Denlinger, Nicholas P. Butch, Michael S. Fuhrer, L. Andrew Wray, and Johnpierre Paglione

Phys. Rev. B 106, L060505 – Published 24 August 2022

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$c$ -axis transport in ${UTe}_{2}$ : Evidence of three-dimensional conductivity component