Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 9, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-48906-7
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Funding
- State of Texas through the Texas Center for Superconductivity at University of Houston
- U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research [FA9550-15-1-0236]
- T.L.L. Temple Foundation
- John J. and Rebecca Moores Endowment
- Division of Research at the University of Houston
- College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Houston
- NSF [DMR-1508644]
- Department of Physics at the University of Houston
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Interest in topological states of matter burgeoned over a decade ago with the theoretical prediction and experimental detection of topological insulators, especially in bulk three-dimensional insulators that can be tuned out of it by doping. Their superconducting counterpart, the fully-gapped three-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological superconductors, have evaded discovery in bulk intrinsic superconductors so far. The recently discovered topological metal beta-PdBi2 is a unique candidate for tunable bulk topological superconductivity because of its intrinsic superconductivity and spin-orbit-coupling. In this work, we provide experimental transport signatures consistent with fully-gapped 3D time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity in K-doped beta-PdBi2. In particular, we find signatures of odd-parity bulk superconductivity via upper-critical field and magnetization measurements-odd-parity pairing can be argued, given the band structure of beta-PdBi2, to result in 3D topological superconductivity. In addition, Andreev spectroscopy reveals surface states protected by time-reversal symmetry which might be possible evidence of Majorana surface states (Majorana cone). Moreover, we find that the undoped bulk system is a trivial superconductor. Thus, we discover beta-PdBi2 as a unique bulk material that, on doping, can potentially undergo an unprecedented topological quantum phase transition in the superconducting state.
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