Type-II Ising pairing in few-layer stanene

Abstract

A resilient superconductor Superconductivity typically does not fare well in the presence of magnetic fields, which tend to break the electron pairs that make a material superconducting. However, some materials, such as the recently discovered Ising superconductors, retain their properties in very high magnetic fields. Ising pairing was identified in transition metal dichalcogenides such as molybdenum disulfide and required the breaking of inversion symmetry. Falson et al. have now found a similar resilience to in-plane magnetic fields in another two-dimensional material, few-layer stanene. The band structure of stanene and the lack of inversion symmetry breaking in the system required a distinct theoretical model to explain this property, now dubbed type II Ising pairing. Science , this issue p. 1454