Microscopic Fingerprint of Chiral Superconductivity
Chiral superconductors have long been theorized to break time-reversal symmetry and support exotic topological features such as Majorana modes and spontaneous edge currents, promising ingredients for quantum technologies. Although several unconventional superconductors may exhibit time-reversal symmetry breaking, clear microscopic evidence of chiral pairing has remained out of reach. In this work, we demonstrate direct real-space signatures of chiral superconductivity in a single atomic layer of tin on Si(111). Using quasiparticle interference imaging, we detected symmetry-locked nodal and antinodal points in the Bogoliubov quasiparticle wave function, tightly bound to atomic point defects in the tin lattice. These nodal features, along with their surrounding texture, form a distinct real-space pattern exhibiting a clear and exclusive hallmark of chiral superconductivity. Our findings, reinforced by analytical theory and numerical simulations, offer unambiguous evidence of chiral pairing in a two-dimensional material.
Authors
- Congrun Chen
- Xuan Hao
- Rui-Xing Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0052-8166)
- Steve Johnston
- Kedong Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9094-4088)
- J. Michael Ramsey
- Anonymous
- Minghao Wu
- Zhuo Chen
- Yuchang Cai
- Fangfei Ming
Institutions
- Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Great Bay University
- University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review X
- Published
- 2026-01-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/jmmf-mpr8
- Primary Topic
- Surface and Thin Film Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00