In recent years, Weyl semi-metals have attracted a lot of interest in topological condensed matter, for instance for their significant potential application in quantum electronics, as the coupling between Weyl semi-metals and superconductivity, either intrinsically in the material or at the interface of a heterostructure, gives rise to a new type of topological superconductivity, which could be used to perform quantum computation operations free from decoherence.
In this thesis, we investigate the low temperature magneto-transport properties of trigonal-PtBi2, a layered material, both in the presence of quantum confinement (exfoliated nano-structures) and in its absence (macro-structures). We report band structure calculations showing that trigonal-PtBi2 is a type-I Weyl semi-metal with multiple bands at the Fermi level. Shubnikov-de-Haas oscillations in macrostructures confirm the contribution to transport of carriers from multiple pockets, and magneto-transport measurements show an unusual angular dependence of the magnetoresistance with the field, which might be a manifestation of the large anisotropy of the topological band. We also report the existence of a large planar Hall effect in nano-structures, which is one of the predicted manifestations of Weyl physics.
At very low temperature, below 1K, trigonal-PtBi2 becomes superconducting. We investigate the superconducting state in both macro- and nano-structures, and find that quantum confinement in nano-structures makes the superconductivity become two-dimensional. This result is confirmed by the characterization of a Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) transition in nano-structures. This transition is very robust, as it occurs in nano-structures five times thicker than what had previously been reported for any BKT transitions in the literature. We also report on the impact of inhomogeneities on the superconducting transition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:79205 |
| Date | 18 May 2022 |
| Creators | Veyrat, Arthur |
| Contributors | Büchner, Bernd, Bouchiat, Hélène, Technische Universität Dresden |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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