Enhanced Critical Field of Superconductivity at an Oxide Interface

Abstract

The nature of superconductivity and its interplay with strong spin-orbit coupling at the KTaO3(111) interfaces remains a subject of debate. To address this problem, we grew epitaxial LaMnO3/KTaO3(111) heterostructures. We show that superconductivity is robust against the in-plane magnetic field, with the critical field of superconductivity reaching 25 T in optimally doped heterostructures. The superconducting order parameter is highly sensitive to carrier density. We argue that spin-orbit coupling drives the formation of anomalous quasiparticles with vanishing magnetic moment, providing the condensate significant immunity against magnetic fields beyond the Pauli paramagnetic limit. These results offer design opportunities for superconductors with extreme resilience against magnetic field