Manfred Sigrist

Date

20 December 2023

Host

Klaus Ensslin

Title

Inversion - a key symmetry for superconductors

Abstract

For superconductivity the fundamental symmetries inversion and time reversal play a pivotal role in the formation of coherent states of Cooper pairs. The phenomenology of a superconductor is profoundly modified by the absence of at least one of the two symmetries within a material. We focus on how the lack of inversion symmetry influences the structure of Cooper pairs and yields intricate properties in these so-called non-centrosymmetric superconductors. Some of these features cascade even into crystalline materials with inversion centers, which however contain coupled non-centrosymmetric subunits, leading to the class of “locally noncentrosymmetric superconductors”. Both kinds of superconductors display particularly intriguing properties in the presence of magnetic fields and add a fascinating chapter to the book of unconventional superconductivity.