Microscopic Fingerprint of Chiral Superconductivity

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Abstract
Chiral superconductors have long been theorized to break time-reversal symmetry and support exotic topological features such as Majorana modes and spontaneous edge currents, promising ingredients for quantum technologies. Although several unconventional superconductors may exhibit time-reversal symmetry breaking, clear microscopic evidence of chiral pairing has remained out of reach. In this work, we demonstrate direct real-space signatures of chiral superconductivity in a single atomic layer of tin on Si(111). Using quasiparticle interference imaging, we detected symmetry-locked nodal and antinodal points in the Bogoliubov quasiparticle wave function, tightly bound to atomic point defects in the tin lattice. These nodal features, along with their surrounding texture, form a distinct real-space pattern exhibiting a clear and exclusive hallmark of chiral superconductivity. Our findings, reinforced by analytical theory and numerical simulations, offer unambiguous evidence of chiral pairing in a two-dimensional material.
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Funding Information
  • Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2024A1515013040)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (12204225)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (12174456)
  • University of Tennessee, Knoxville (DMR-2309083)
  • National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center

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