By using a molecular beam epitaxy technique, we fabricate a new type of
superconducting superlattices with controlled atomic layer thicknesses of
alternating blocks between heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn_5, which
exhibits a strong Pauli pair-breaking effect, and nonmagnetic metal YbCoIn_5.
The introduction of the thickness modulation of YbCoIn_5 block layers breaks
the inversion symmetry centered at the superconducting block of CeCoIn_5. This
configuration leads to dramatic changes in the temperature and angular
dependence of the upper critical field, which can be understood by considering
the effect of the Rashba spin-orbit interaction arising from the inversion
symmetry breaking and the associated weakening of the Pauli pair-breaking
effect. Since the degree of thickness modulation is a design feature of this
type of superlattices, the Rashba interaction and the nature of pair-breaking
are largely tunable in these modulated superlattices with strong spin-orbit
coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
