Crystal growth and Hall effect of the non-centrosymmetric superconductor α-BiPd and the topological superconductor β-Bi2Pd

Due to the rarity of triplet pairing, topological superconductors (SCs) have primarily been realized experimentally in manufactured topological phases, such as heterostructures, where the proximity effect causes triplet pairing with traditional s-wave SCs. Recently, there has been a lot of interest in investigating novel quantum materials with spin-triplet pairs in order to develop Majorana physics and creating quantum computers. Bi-based superconductors are speculated to hold promise for realizing spin-triplet pairing due to its large spin orbit coupling. In this work, we present the growth of α-BiPd and β-Bi2Pd single crystals using the optical floating zone technique and their characterization. The single crystals of α-BiPd and β-Bi2Pd are found to crystallize in monoclinic and tetragonal crystalline system with space group P21 and I4/mmm, respectively. The composition and microstructure of the grown crystals were analyzed with a scanning electron microscope, through energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) analysis. The superconducting behavior and Hall effect of both α-BiPd and β-Bi2Pd single crystals have been investigated through resistivity measurements.