By means of low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy we observed the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity, two usually antagonistic phenomena, in boron doped diamond. Moreover, we demonstrated that due to this unconventional combination, Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bands emerge – unique electronic states with a spatial extent of tens of nanometers. The experimental results were further confirmed theoretically by our international collaborators. The study was published in the prestigious American journal Science Advances [G. Zhang, T. Samuely, N. Iwahara et al., Sci. Adv. 2020; 6: eaaz2536], which is included in Nature index and has an impact factor of 12.8.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz2536
Figure: Two-dimensional spin lattice (red arrows) on boron doped diamond induces excitations (yellow) in the superconducting density of states (blue). These excitations hybridize into Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bands with a spatial extent of tens of nanometers.
