Revealing the Origin of Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking in Fe-Chalcogenide Superconductor FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x}

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 130; no. 4; p. 046702
• Main Authors: Farhang, Camron, Zaki, Nader, Wang, Jingyuan, Gu, Genda, Johnson, Peter D, Xia, Jing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 27-01-2023
• ISSN: 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.046702

Recently, evidence has emerged in the topological superconductor Fe-chalcogenide FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x} for time-reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB), the nature of which has strong implications on the Majorana zero modes (MZM) discovered in this system. It remains unclear, however, whether the TRSB resides in the topological surface state (TSS) or in the bulk, and whether it is due to an unconventional TRSB superconducting order parameter or an intertwined order. Here, by performing in superconducting FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x} crystals both surface-magneto-optic-Kerr effect measurements using a Sagnac interferometer and bulk magnetic susceptibility measurements, we pinpoint the TRSB to the TSS, where we also detect a Dirac gap. Further, we observe surface TRSB in nonsuperconducting FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x} of nominally identical composition, indicating that TRSB arises from an intertwined surface ferromagnetic (FM) order. The observed surface FM bears striking similarities to the two-dimensional (2D) FM found in 2D van der Waals crystals, and is highly sensitive to the exact chemical composition, thereby providing a means for optimizing the conditions for Majorana particles that are useful for robust quantum computing.