Electron-phonon coupling and spin fluctuations in the Ising superconductor NbSe2

S Das, H Paudyal, ER Margine, DF Agterberg… - npj Computational …, 2023 - nature.com
npj Computational Materials, 2023nature.com
Ising superconductivity, observed in NbSe2 and similar materials, has generated
tremendous interest. Recently, attention was called to the possible role that spin fluctuations
(SF) play in this phenomenon, in addition to the dominant electron–phonon coupling (EPC);
the possibility of a predominantly triplet state was discussed and led to a conjecture of viable
singlet–triplet Leggett oscillations. However, these hypotheses have not been put to a
quantitative test. In this paper, we report first principle calculations of the EPC and also …
Abstract
Ising superconductivity, observed in NbSe2 and similar materials, has generated tremendous interest. Recently, attention was called to the possible role that spin fluctuations (SF) play in this phenomenon, in addition to the dominant electron–phonon coupling (EPC); the possibility of a predominantly triplet state was discussed and led to a conjecture of viable singlet–triplet Leggett oscillations. However, these hypotheses have not been put to a quantitative test. In this paper, we report first principle calculations of the EPC and also estimate coupling with SF, including full momentum dependence. We find that: (1) EPC is strongly anisotropic, largely coming from the scattering, and therefore excludes triplet symmetry even as an excited state; (2) superconductivity is substantially weakened by SF, but anisotropy remains as above; and, (3) we do find the possibility of a Leggett mode, not in a singlet–triplet but in an s++s± channel.
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