Superconductivity in non-centrosymmetric materials

Abstract

Superconductivity in absence of inversion symmetry of the crystal structure is basically controlled by a Rashba-like antisymmetric spin orbit coupling which splits the Fermi surface and removes the spin degeneracy of electrons. The Fermi surface splitting can originate a mixing of spin-singlet and spin-triplet states in the superconducting condensate. The presence of spin-triplet states is expected to be responsible for various uncommon features of the superconducting ground state. Experimentally, distinct deviations from the expectations of the BCS theory are found, in general, only in those systems where beside the missing of inversion symmetry strong correlations among electrons are present. Materials of this group are primarily based on Ce, Yb or U. For the much larger group of materials without substantial electronic correlations, BCS-like superconductivity was observed in the overwhelming number of known examples. Hence, unconventional superconductivity requires, in general, the mutual presence of electronic correlations and non-centrosymmetric crystal structures.