Superconducting Vortices in CeCoIn5: Toward the Pauli-Limiting Field

doi:10.1126/science.1150600

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Science 11 January 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5860, pp. 177 - 180
DOI: 10.1126/science.1150600

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Superconducting Vortices in CeCoIn₅: Toward the Pauli-Limiting Field

Andrea D. Bianchi,¹^* Michel Kenzelmann,²^,3 Lisa DeBeer-Schmitt,⁴ Jon S. White,⁵ Edward M. Forgan,⁵ Joel Mesot,³ Markus Zolliker,⁶ Joachim Kohlbrecher,³ Roman Movshovich,⁷ Eric. D. Bauer,⁷ John L. Sarrao,⁷ Zachary Fisk,¹ Cedomir Petrovi $c$ ,⁸ Morten Ring Eskildsen⁴

Many superconducting materials allow the penetration of magneticfields in a mixed state in which the superfluid is threadedby a regular lattice of Abrikosov vortices, each carrying onequantum of magnetic flux. The phenomenological Ginzburg-Landautheory, based on the concept of characteristic length scales,has generally provided a good description of the Abrikosov vortexlattice state. We conducted neutron-scattering measurementsof the vortex lattice form factor in the heavy-fermion superconductorcerium-cobalt-indium (CeCoIn₅) and found that this form factorincreases with increasing field—opposite to the expectationswithin the Abrikosov-Ginzburg-Landau paradigm. We propose thatthe anomalous field dependence of the form factor arises fromPauli paramagnetic effects around the vortex cores and fromthe proximity of the superconducting state to a quantum criticalpoint.

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
² Laboratory for Solid State Physics, ETH Zürich, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
³ Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, ETH Zürich and Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
⁵ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
⁶ Laboratory for Developments and Methods, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
⁷ MPA-10, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.
⁸ Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA.

^* Present address: Département de Physique, Universitéde Montréal, Montréal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: andrea.bianchi{at}umontreal.ca

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:

Coupled Superconducting and Magnetic Order in CeCoIn5.: M. Kenzelmann, Th. Strassle, C. Niedermayer, M. Sigrist, B. Padmanabhan, M. Zolliker, A. D. Bianchi, R. Movshovich, E. D. Bauer, J. L. Sarrao, et al. (2008)
Science 321, 1652-1654
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