h/e oscillations in interlayer transport of delafossites

h/e oscillations in interlayer transport of delafossites

Microstructures can be carefully designed to reveal the quantum phase of the wave-like
nature of electrons in a metal. Here, we report phase-coherent oscillations of out-of-plane
magnetoresistance in the layered delafossites PdCoO2 and PtCoO2. The oscillation period is
equivalent to that determined by the magnetic flux quantum, h/e, threading an area defined
by the atomic interlayer separation and the sample width, where h is Planck’s constant and e
is the charge of an electron. The phase of the electron wave function appears robust over
length scales exceeding 10 micrometers and persisting up to temperatures of T > 50 kelvin.
We show that the experimental signal stems from a periodic field modulation of the
out-of-plane hopping. These results demonstrate extraordinary single-particle quantum
coherence lengths in delafossites.

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QMAT Publications

Carsten Putzke, Maja D. Bachmann, Philippa McGuinness, Elina Zhakina, Veronika Sunko, Marcin Konczykowski, Takashi Oka, Roderich Moessner, Ady Stern, Markus König, Seunghyun Khim, Andrew P. Mackenzie, Philip J.W. Moll

Science 368:1234-1238

12 June 2020

DOI: 10.1126/science.aay8413