An unusual material hosts even and odd superconducting phases

Most unconventional superconductors have a single superconducting phase. That’s surprising because their conduction electrons have a variety of theorized ways to couple up. Conceivably, they could transition between different sorts of superconducting orders. But so far, only uranium ditelluride and two other uranium compounds have shown such transitions.

Now Elena Hassinger of the Technical University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany, and her colleagues have observed two superconducting phases in crystals of CeRh₂As₂. Unlike the two phases in UTe₂, the ones in CeRh₂As₂ seem to have different parities as a result of the material’s unusual structure.

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