Superconductors with Staggered Non-centrosymmetricity

Non-centrosymmetric superconductors have attracted much interest in the context of heavy Fermion and interface superconductivity. Here we show that a sublattice structure of staggered subunits without inversion center can have important implications for superconductivity even in a globally centrosymmetric system. After discussing general aspects of systems with alternating non-centrosymmetric layers, two concrete examples are studied: (1) the artificially grown superlattices of CeCoIn5/YbCoIn5 and (2) the pnictide superconductor SrPtAs. For example (1) implications on the upper critical field are analysed and novel phases in a magnetic field are explored. Example (2) realizes likely a chiral d-wave phase for which a few implications of staggered non-centrosymmetricity are discussed.