MoTe2 is a Weyl semimetal, which exhibits unique non-saturating magnetoresistance and strongly reinforced superconductivity under pressure. Here, we demonstrate that a novel mesoscopic superconductivity at ambient pressure arises on the surface of MoTe2 with a critical temperature up to 5 K significantly exceeding the bulk Tc = 0.1 K. We measured the derivatives of I-V curves for hetero-contacts of MoTe 2 with Ag or Cu, homo-contacts of MoTe2 as well as "soft" point contacts (PCs). Large number of these hetero-contacts exhibit a dV/dI dependence, which is characteristic for Andreev reflection. It allows us to determine the superconducting gap Δ. The average gap values are 2Δ=1.30±0.15 meV with a 2Δ/k BTc ratio of 3.7± 0.4, which slightly exceeds the standard BCS value of 3.52. Furthermore, the temperature dependence of the gap follows a BCS-like behavior, which points to a nodeless superconducting order parameter with some strong-coupling renormalization. Remarkably, the observation of a "gapless-like" single minimum in the dV/dI of "soft" PCs may indicate a topological superconducting state of the MoTe2 surface as these contacts probe mainly the interface and avoid additional pressure effect. Therefore, MoTe2 might be a suitable material to study new forms of topological superconductivity. ResultsPoint contact spectroscopy with "hard" tips. Figures 1 and 2 show the dV/dI curves for typical MoTe2-Ag hetero-contact (hereinafter -"hard" contact) in dependence on their temperature and in magnetic field. About a dozen of "hard" contacts with either Ag or Cu (of total 20 "hard" contacts) show similar a dV/dI dependence with a characteristic AR structure, i.e., a double-minimum around zero-bias.

Phonon spectroscopy is used to investigate the mechanism of current-induced spin torques in nonmagnetic/ferromagnetic (N/F) point contacts. Magnetization excitations observed in the magneto-conductance of the point contacts are pronounced for diffusive and thermal contacts, where the electrons experience significant scattering in the contact region. We find no magnetic excitations in highly ballistic contacts. Our results show that impurity scattering at the N/F interface is the origin of the new single-interface spin torque effect.

Abstract:We have investigated the adsorption of H 2 O onto the A and B type steps on an Ag single crystal by temperature programmed desorption. For this study, we have used a curved crystal exposing a continuous range of surface structures ranging from [5(111) × (100)] via (111) to [5(111) × (110)]. LEED and STM studies verify that the curvature of our sample results predominantly from monoatomic steps. The sample thus provides a continuous array of step densities for both step types. Desorption probed by spatially-resolved TPD of multilayers of H 2 O shows no dependence on the exact substrate structure and thus confirms the absence of thermal gradients during temperature ramps. In the submonolayer regime, we observe a small and linear dependence of the desorption temperature on the A and B step density. We argue that such small differences are only observable by means of a single curved crystal, which thus establishes new experimental benchmarks for theoretical calculation of chemically accurate binding energies. We propose an origin of the observed behavior based on a "two state" desorption model.

Temperature has an important effect on the dissociative adsorption of molecular oxygen on platinum surfaces. Here, we show that if the substrate temperature is increased to 400-600 K, the total amount of oxygen loaded onto Pt(111) can be more than twice the well-established maximum coverage of 0.25 ML. While low energy electron diffraction and STM reveal a conventional p(2 9 2) structure of the topmost layer, temperature programmed desorption measurements indicate that additional oxygen is stored under the surface of platinum. Reactivity measurements show that this sub-surface oxygen layer does not lower the activity of such platinum surface towards CO oxidation. Therefore, while sub-surface oxygen layer does form under catalytically relevant temperatures on Pt(111), it has no great influence on the oxidizing ability of such surface. This sheds new light on the initial stages of platinum oxide formation, and may help bridge the understanding of catalytic oxidation of CO on Pt in ultra high vacuum and in high-pressure catalysis studies.