Fig. 5: Switching between trivial s and topological triplet p ± ip pairing in honeycomb superconductors.
From: Light-induced switching between singlet and triplet superconducting states
a Schematic of a minimal honeycomb-lattice conventional s-wave superconductor with a competing chiral triplet pairing instability. b Order parameter trajectory in the free energy landscape as a function of the magnitudes of the s and p + ip order parameters, demonstrating the stable switching of the equilibrium order parameter to a metastable chiral state. A small difference in the relaxation rates for the two chiral states is assumed. c Dynamics of Ax(t), Ay(t), and \(\left\vert {\Delta }_{i}(t)\right\vert\) for Δs and Δp±ip. d Schematic plot of the spectral profile of the pulse in (c) showing strong overlap with the BS mode frequency ΩBS and minimal overlap with the quasiparticle continuum (QPC). e Parametric plot in terms of inverse pulse width (in THz) and fluence (in mJ/cm2) showing which Gaussian pulses centered at Ω = 0.75 ΩBS lead to successful switching to the metastable p + ip state. The window is chosen so that no more than 10% of the fluence overlaps with the QPC. A star indicates the pulse parameters used in b–d.
