Role of strong spin-orbit coupling in the superconductivity of the hexagonal pnictide SrPtAs

Abstract

In clean inversion symmetric materials, spin-orbit coupling is not thought to have a pronounced effect on spin-singlet superconductivity. Here we show that, for the recently discovered pnictide superconductor SrPtAs, this is not the case. In particular, for spin-singlet superconductivity in SrPtAs, strong spin-orbit coupling leads to a significant enhancement of both the spin susceptibility and the paramagnetic limiting field with respect to that usually expected for spin-singlet superconductors. The underlying reason for this is that, while SrPtAs has a center of inversion symmetry, it contains weakly coupled As-Pt layers that do not have inversion symmetry. This local inversion-symmetry breaking allows for a form of spin-orbit coupling that dramatically effects superconductivity. These results indicate that caution should be used when interpreting measurements of the spin susceptibility and the paramagnetic limiting field if superconductivity resides in regions of locally broken inversion symmetry.