SCATE

The project will boost a new generation of experiments designed to identify a much sought-after paradigm of chiral superconductivity. Chiral superconductivity is central for most applications of topological superconductivity. Besides time-reversal symmetry breaking, chirality in the superconducting state has many predicted signatures. The most prominent are the existence of zero energy excitations (Majorana modes) at interfaces. They lead to thermal edge currents, to a quantized thermal Hall effect, and to half quantized vortices. An anomalous bulk thermal transport is also expected from the low energy chiral thermal excitations. The challenge is to combine bulk thermal transport experiments and local microscopic measurements sensitive to edge thermal currents or to the flux quantization of vortices. The project is carried by three French teams, gathering strength from their complementary expertise. They will considerably improve the sensitivity of their experimental techniques, and perform these measurements on a family of uranium-based superconductors. These systems have been chosen because they are prime candidates for chiral superconductivity, and offer the rare opportunity to test the different responses predicted according to their precise superconducting order parameter symmetry. A German team (with no request for ANR support) will also collaborate on this project, for micro-patterning by focused ion beam etching of the uranium-based crystals.