Unconventional superconductivity of the heavy fermion compound UNi 2 Al 3

The heavy fermion compound UNi2Al3 exhibits the coexistence of superconductivity and magnetic order at low temperatures, stimulating speculations about possible exotic Cooper-pairing interaction in this superconductor. However, the preparation of good quality bulk single crystals of UNi2Al3 has proven to be a non-trivial task due to metallurgical problems, which result in the formation of an UAl2 impurity phase and hence a strongly reduced sample purity. The present work concentrates on the preparation, characterization and electronic properties investigation of UNi2Al3 single crystalline thin film samples. The preparation of thin films was accomplished in a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system. (100)-oriented epitaxial thin films of UNi2Al3 were grown on single crystalline YAlO3 substrates cut in (010)- or (112)-direction. The high crystallographic quality of the samples was proved by several characterisation methods, such as X-ray analysis, RHEED and TEM. To study the magnetic structure of epitaxial thin films resonant magnetic x-ray scattering was employed. The magnetic order of thin the film samples, the formation of magnetic domains with different moment directions, and the magnetic correlation length were discussed. The electronic properties of the UNi2Al3 thin films in the normal and superconducting states were investigated by means of transport measurements. A pronounced anisotropy of the temperature dependent resistivity ρ(T) was observed. Moreover, it was found that the temperature of the resistive superconducting transition depends on the current direction, providing evidence for multiband superconductivity in UNi2Al3. The initial slope of the upper critical field H′c2(T) of the thin film samples suggests an unconventional spin-singlet superconducting state, as opposed to bulk single crystal data. To probe the superconducting gap of UNi2Al3 directly by means of tunnelling spectroscopy many planar junctions of different design employing different techniques were prepared. Despite the tunneling regime of the junctions, no features of the superconducting density of state of UNi2Al3 were ever observed. It is assumed that the absence of UNi2Al3 gap features in the tunneling spectra was caused by imperfections of the tunnelling contacts. The superconductivity of UNi2Al3 was probably suppressed just in a degraded surface layer, resulting in tunneling into non superconducting UNi2Al3. However, alternative explanations such as intrinsic pair breaking effects at the interface to the barrier are also possible.

Electronic transport in the heavy fermion superconductors UPd 2 Al 3 and UNi 2 Al 3

This work addresses the electronical properties of the superconductors UPd2Al3 and UNi2Al3 on the basis of thin film experiments. These isotructural compounds are ideal candiates to study the interplay of magnetism and superconductivity due to the differences of their magnetically ordered states, as well as the experimental evidence for a magnetic pairing mechanism in UPd2Al3. Epitaxial thin film samples of UPd2Al3 and UNi2Al3 were prepared using UHV Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). For UPd2Al3, the change of the growth direction from the intrinsic (001) to epitaxial (100) was predicted and sucessfully demonstrated using LaAlO3 substrates cut in (110) direction. With optimized deposition process parameters for UPd2Al3 (100) on LaAlO3 (110) superconducting samples with critical temperatures up to Tc = 1.75K were obtained. UPd2Al3-AlOx-Ag mesa junctions with superconducting base electrode were prepared and shown to be in the tunneling regime. However, no signatures of a superconducting density of states were observed in the tunneling spectra. The resistive superconducting transition was probed for a possible dependence on the current direction. In contrast to UNi2Al3, the existence of such feature was excluded in UPd2Al3 (100) thin films. The second focus of this work is the dependence of the resisitive transition in UNi2Al3 (100) thin films on the current direction. The experimental fact that the resisitive transition occurs at slightly higher temperatures for I║a than for I║c can be explained within a model of two weakly coupled superconducting bands. Evidence is presented for the key assumption of the two-band model, namely that transport in and out of the ab-plane is generated on different, weakly coupled parts of the Fermi surface. Main indications are the angle dependence of the superconducting transition and the dependence of the upper critical field Bc2 on current and field orientation. Additionally, several possible alternative explanations for the directional splitting of the transition are excluded in this work. An origin due to scattering on crystal defects or impurities is ruled out, likewise a relation to ohmic heating or vortex dynamics. The shift of the transition temperature as function of the current density was found to behave as predicted by the Ginzburg-Landau theory for critical current depairing, which plays a significant role in the two-band model. In conclusion, the directional splitting of the resisitive transition has to be regarded an intrinsic and unique property of UNi2Al3 up to now. Therefore, UNi2Al3 is proposed as a role model for weakly coupled multiband superconductivity. Magnetoresistance in the normalconducting state was measured for UPd2Al3 and UNi2Al3. For UNi2Al3, a negative contribution was observed close to the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature TN only for I║a, which can be associated to reduced spin-disorder scattering. In agreement with previous results it is concluded that the magnetic moments have to be attributed to the same part of the Fermi surface which generates transport in the ab-plane.