Precision microwave spectroscopy of the heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn5

The heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 demonstrates remarkable similarities to the high-Tc cuprates in many of its properties including proximity to antiferromagnetism, quasi-two-dimensionality, d-wave superconductivity, and departures from Fermi liquid behaviour in the normal state. It is also a “high-Tc” superconductor in the context of the heavy fermions. The experimental technique of microwave cavity perturbation has been used to measure the electrodynamics of a single crystal of CeCoIn5 over a range of temperatures, from 80 mK to 35 K, in a dilution refrigerator. Measurements at multiple frequencies required the development of an in-situ technique for the bolometric detection of the surface resistance. This has allowed conductivity spectra to be acquired, resulting in several important results. First, the resolution of an unexplained fractional power law in the penetration depth has been achieved by properly isolating the nodal quasiparticle contribution, revealing a previously unseen linear temperature dependence in CeCoIn5, as expected for a d-wave superconductor. Second, the temperature evolution of the microwave conductivity spectra implies that the effective mass of the quasiparticles continues to change below Tc, hinting that quantum criticality remains important even in the superconducting state. Third, conductivity spectra that are strikingly similar to those from YBa2Cu3O6+y suggest a strong connection in the underlying charge dynamics, as both CeCoIn5 and YBa2Cu3O6+y show a collapse in the quasiparticle scattering rate below Tc. Finally, the spectra indicate the presence of multiband effects.