Superconductivity in disordered locally noncentrosymmetric materials: An application to <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>CeRh</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi>As</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>
David Möckli, Aline Ramires
Abstract
Layered three-dimensional centrosymmetric crystals can exhibit characteristics of noncentrosymmetric materials. This happens when each individual layer alone lacks inversion but, when combined, inversion symmetry is restored; hence the designation locally noncentrosymmertic superconductors (LNCSs). In LNCSs, the effects of impurities and subdominant magnetic field induced pairing channels remain unexplored. Using a minimal model, we examine all pairing channels and show that there is always a subdominant superconducting instability that is favored at high magnetic fields, which can substantially alter the magnetic field--temperature phase diagram. Also, we find that the phase diagram responds to disorder in a nonmonotonic way, which can be subjected to experimental verification. We apply these ideas to the recently unveiled two-phase superconducting phase diagram of ${\mathrm{CeRh}}_{2}{\mathrm{As}}_{2}$. We identify the two phases as singlet-triplet mixed even- and odd-parity states at low and high-fields, respectively. Furthermore, we predict the presence of two superconducting phases also for in-plane magnetic fields in cleaner samples, since a high-field phase could have been so far hindered by impurity effects.