Topological phononic insulators are the counterpart of three-dimensional quantum spin Hall insulators in phononic systems and, as such, their topological surfaces are characterized by Dirac cone-shaped gapless edge states arising as a consequence of a bulk-boundary correspondence. We propose a theoretical framework for the possible superconducting phase in these materials, where the attractive interaction between electrons is mediated by topological phonons in nontrivial boundary modes. Within the BCS limit, we develop a self-consistent two-band gap equation, whose solutions show that the superconducting critical temperature has a non-monotonic behaviour with respect to the phononic frequency in the Kramers-like point. This remarkable behaviour is produced by a resonance, that occurs when electrons and phonons on the topological surfaces have the same energy: this effectively increases the electron-phonon interaction and hence the Cooper pair binding energy, thus establishing an optimal condition for the superconducting phase. With this mechanism, the $T_{c}$ can be increased by well over a factor two, and the maximum enhancement occurs in the degenerate phononic flat-band limit.
We present a systematic theory of acoustic-phonon-mediated superconductivity, which incorporates Coulomb repulsion, explaining the recent experiment in Bernal bilayer graphene under a large displacement field. The acoustic-phonon mechanism predicts that $s$-wave spin-singlet and $f$-wave spin-triplet pairings are degenerate and dominant. Assuming a spin-polarized valley-unpolarized normal state, we obtain $f$-wave spin-triplet superconductivity with a $T_c\sim 20$ mK near $n_e=-0.6\times 10^{12}$ cm$^{-2}$ for hole doping, in approximate agreement with the experiment. We further predict the ex…
The disclosure of spinon superconductivity and superconductivity mediated by spin-waves in hole-doped Bi2212 cuprate raises the question about the origin of the superconductivity in other cuprates and specially in an electron-doped NCCO cuprate.
We report on a novel mechanism of BCS-like superconductivity, mediated by a pair of Bogoliubov quasiparticles (bogolons). It takes place in hybrid systems consisting of a two-dimensional electron gas in a transition metal dichalcogenide monolayer in the vicinity of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Taking a system of two-dimensional indirect excitons as a testing ground we show, that the bogolon-pair-mediated electron pairing mechanism is stronger than phonon-mediated and single bogolon-mediated ones. We develop a microscopic theory of bogolon-pair-mediated superconductivity, based on the Schrieffer…
We utilize the Hubbard model to demonstrate that doping of the antiferromagnetic parent compounds of cuprate superconductors stabilizes a spin liquid state. Superconductivity in such a state emerges due to the spin-orbit coupling between charge current and superfluidity of spinon condensate, resulting in a chiral relation between the order parameter phase gradient and supercurrent. We propose simple experimental tests for the presented mechanism.
We investigate theoretically magnon-mediated superconductivity in a heterostructure consisting of a normal metal and a two-sublattice antiferromagnetic insulator. The attractive electron-electron pairing interaction is caused by an interfacial exchange coupling with magnons residing in the antiferromagnet, resulting in p-wave, spin-triplet superconductivity in the normal metal. Our main finding is that one may significantly enhance the superconducting critical temperature by coupling the normal metal to only one of the two antiferromagnetic sublattices employing, for example, an uncompensated …
We investigate the competition between acoustic-phonon-mediated superconductivity and the long-range Coulomb interaction in moiréless graphene multilayers, specifically, Bernal bilayer graphene, rhombohedral trilayer graphene, and ABCA-stacked tetralayer graphene. In these graphene multilayers, the acoustic phonons can realize, through electron-phonon coupling, both spin-singlet and spin-triplet pairings, and the intra-sublattice pairings ($s$-wave spin-singlet and $f$-wave spin-triplet) are the dominant channels. Our theory naturally explains the distinct recent experimental findings in Berna…
We revisit the exciton mechanism of superconductivity in the framework of microcavity physics, replacing virtual excitons as a binding agent of Cooper pairs by excitations of an exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate. We consider a model microcavity where a quantum well with a two dimensional electron gas is sandwiched between two undoped quantum wells, where a polariton condensate is formed. We show that the critical temperature for superconductivity dramatically increases with the condensate population, opening a new route towards high temperature superconductivity.
We investigate electron paring in a two-dimensional electron system mediated by vacuum fluctuations inside a nanoplasmonic terahertz cavity. We show that the structured cavity vacuum can induce long-range attractive interactions between current fluctuations which lead to pairing in generic materials with critical temperatures in the low-Kelvin regime for realistic parameters. The induced state is a pair density wave superconductor which can show a transition from a fully gapped to a partially gapped phase - akin to the pseudogap phase in high-$T_c$ superconductors. Our findings provide a promi…
We determine the behavior of the critical temperature of magnetically mediated p-wave superconductivity near a ferromagnetic quantum critical point in three dimensions, distinguishing universal and non-universal aspects of the result. We find that the transition temperature is non-zero at the critical point, raising the possibility of superconductivity in the ferromagnetic phase.
We argue that Raman scattering in $B_{1g}$ symmetry allows one to distinguish between phonon-mediated and magnetically-mediated $d-$wave superconductivity. In spin mediated superconductors, $B_{1g}$ Raman intensity develops a resonance at a frequency $ω_{res} < 2Δ_{max}$, whose origin is similar to a neutron resonance. In phonon-mediated $d-$wave superconductors, such a resonance does not develop. Several extensions of the argument are presented.
We study superconductivity on the surface of a topological insulator, mediated by magnetic fluctuations in an adjacent ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic insulator. Superconductivity can arise from effective interactions between helical fermions induced by interfacial fermion-magnon interactions. For both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic insulators, these fermion-fermion interactions have the correct structure to facilitate pairing between particles located on the same side of the Fermi surface, also known as Amperean pairing. In antiferromagnets, the strength of the induced interactions ca…
The interfacial coupling between electrons and magnons in adjacent layers can mediate an attractive electron-electron interaction and induce superconductivity. We consider magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene sandwiched between two ferromagnetic insulators to optimize this effect. As a result, magnons induce an interlayer superconducting state characterized by $p$-wave symmetry. We investigate two candidate ferromagnets. The van der Waals ferromagnet CrI$_3$ stands out because it allows compression to tune the superconducting state with an exponential sensitivity. This control adds a new dimen…
We review the evidence supporting valence-fluctuation mediated superconductivity in CeCu2Si2 and CeCu2Ge2, where Tc reaches 2.4 K at high pressure. In these systems the valence and magnetic critical points, at p_V and p_c respectively, are well separated. Characteristic signatures associated with both phenomena are distinct. In contrast, the valence and spin fluctuation regions appear much closer in most Ce based compounds. Concerning d-transition metals, superconductivity in pure iron emerges in the pressure window 15-30 GPa with the onset of Tc up to almost 3 K. All relevant observations poi…
Motivated by the observation of two distinct superconducting phases in the moiréless ABC-stacked rhombohedral trilayer graphene, we investigate the electron-acoustic-phonon coupling as a possible pairing mechanism. We predict the existence of superconductivity with the highest $T_c\sim 3$K near the Van Hove singularity. Away from the Van Hove singularity, $T_c$ remains finite in a wide range of doping. In our model, the $s$-wave spin-singlet and $f$-wave spin-triplet pairings yield the same $T_c$, while other pairing states have negligible $T_c$. Our theory provides a simple explanation for th…
We predict a strong enhancement of the critical temperature in a conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor in the presence of a bosonic condensate of exciton-polaritons. The effect depends strongly on the ratio of the cutoff frequencies for phonon and exciton-polariton mediated BCS superconductivity, respectively. We also discuss a possible design of hybrid semiconductor-superconductor structures suitable for the experimental observation of such an effect.
Breaking down the traditional perception on phonons which are achiral, the recent discovery of chiral phonon carrying angular momentum provides possible ways to couple electron, photon, spin, magnon and exciton, etc. We theoretically proposed an electron-chiral phonon interaction with two-phonon process, in contrast to conventional electron-phonon interaction, and a kind of effective Hubbard U through exchanging two chiral phonons is proposed. Taking two-dimensional diatomic honeycomb lattice as an example, we found this repulsive Hubbard U mediated by chiral phonons induces unconventional and…
We have evaluated the total carrier mass enhancement factor f_{t} for MgB_{2} from two independent experiments (specific heat and upper critical field). These experiments consistently show that f_{t} = 3.1\pm0.1. The unusually large f_{t} is incompatible with the measured reduced gap (2Δ(0)/k_{B}T_{c} = 4.1) and the total isotope-effect exponent (α= 0.28\pm0.04) within the conventional phonon-mediated model. We propose an unconventional phonon-mediated mechanism, which is able to quantitatively explain the values of T_{c}, f_{t}, α, and the reduced energy gap in a consistent way.
We propose a new Rashba-free mechanism to realize topological superconductivity with electron-phonon interaction. In the presence of a magnetic field, electron-phonon interaction with small momentum transfer is found to favor spin-triplet Cooper pairing. This process facilitates the formation of chiral topological superconductivity even when Rashba spin-orbital coupling is absent. As a proof of concept, we propose an experimentally feasible heterostructure to systematically study the entangled relationship among forward-phonon scatterings, Rashba spin-orbital couplings, pairing symmetries, and…
We investigate the interaction between the electrons of a two-dimensional metal and the acoustic phonons of an underlying piezoelectric substrate. Fundamental inequalities can be obtained from general energy arguments. As a result, phonon mediated attraction can be proven to never overcome electron Coulomb repulsion, at least for long phonon wavelengths. We study the influence of these phonons on the possible pairing instabilities of a two-dimensional electron gas such as graphene.
Effects of short-range correlations on the Coulomb screening, the phonons, and the pairing interactions are examined in electron-phonon systems. First, we derive a model Hamiltonian of Coulomb interactions which includes both the long-range part v_q and the short-range part U. It is found from the expression of the dielectric function that the strong on-site correlations weaken the Coulomb screening. Secondly, we examine the screened phonons and the interaction mediated by phonons. In a consistent picture, we derive an expression of the effective interaction which includes (1) the screened Cou…
In elemental metals the pairing of electrons leading to superconductivity is mediated by the vibrations of the crystal lattice and the pairs have spherical symmetry. For layered organic molecular crystals there is no consensus about the pairing symmetry or the mechanism of the superconductivity. We show theoretically that the mechanism of superconductivity for members of the (BEDT-TTF)2X family with the theta and beta'' crystal structures is mediated by charge fluctuations and the superconducting order parameter has dxy symmetry. This is in contrast to the kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2X family, for which …
We report first principles calculations of the electronic structure, phonon dispersions and electron phonon coupling of LaNiPO. These calculations show that this material can be explained as a conventional electron phonon superconductor in contrast to the FeAs based high temperature superconductors.
Using density functional theory we demonstrate that superconductivity in C6Ca is due to a phonon-mediated mechanism with electron-phonon coupling 0.83 and phonon-frequency logarithmic-average 24.7 meV. The calculated isotope exponents are 0.24 for Ca and 0.26 for C. Superconductivity is mostly due C vibrations perpendicular and Ca vibrations parallel to the graphite layers. Since the electron-phonon couplings of these modes are activated by the presence of an intercalant Fermi surface, the occurrence of superconductivity in graphite intercalated compounds requires a non complete ionization of …
We develop a strong-coupling theory of Bose-Einstein condensate-mediated superconductivity in a hybrid system, which consists of a two-dimensional electron gas with either (i) parabolic spectrum or (ii) relativistic Dirac spectrum in the vicinity of a two-dimensional solid-state condensate of indirect excitons. The Eliashberg equations are derived and the expressions for the electron pairing self-energy due to the exchange interaction between electrons mediated by a single Bogoliubov excitation (a bogolon) and the bogolon pairs are found. Furthermore, we find the superconducting order paramete…
In PrOs4Sb12, the lowest-lying singlet and triplet states in a Pr 4f^2 configuration hybridize with conduction electrons having local a_u and t_u point-group symmetries. It is shown that for an attractive triplet pairing interaction, the orbital degrees of freedom of the t_u component are important. In addition, the Th point-group symmetry characteristic of skutterudites plays an important role in stabilizing triplet superconductivity.
In this chapter we review the essentials of conventional electron-phonon superconductivity, as provided through the Migdal-Eliashberg formalism. Signatures of the electron-phonon interaction, as they appear in conventional superconductors, are described in detail. An appendix briefly describes more recent attempts to understand the electron-phonon interaction for all coupling strengths.
The Hamiltonian describing a system of strongly correlated electrons coupled to dispersionless phonons was solved numerically for a ring of 8 atoms using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. It was found that electron correlation and electron-phonon coupling compete against each other, and strong electron correlations suppress the charge-ordered insulating state. This allows extended polarons to form in the strong electron-phonon coupling regime. It is shown that in this regime two polarons may form a pair via phonon mediated charge-fluctuation interaction. Based on the resu…
We suggest that the high-temperature superconductivity is attributed to the director-roles of van Hove singularity between electron-electron interaction and electron-phonon interaction. Difference between the critical temperature and pairing temperature is presented, and the Fermi arc, d-wave symmetry and poor conductor etc are discussed. Particularly, non-s-wave symmetry is predicted to have the highest Tc for superconductors.
We investigate the superconductivity in Sr$_2$RuO$_4$ on the basis of the three-dimensional three-band Hubbard model. We propose a model with Coulomb interactions among the electrons on the nearest-neighbor Ru sites. In our model the intersite Coulomb repulsion and exchange coupling can work as the effective interaction for the spin-triplet paring. This effective interaction is enhanced by the band hybridization, which is mediated by the interlayer transfers. We investigate the possibility of this mechanism in the ground state and find that the orbital dependent spin-triplet superconductivity …
We study the effect of buckling and breathing phonons, relevant for cuprate superconductors, on the d-wave superconductivity in the two-dimensional Hubbard model by employing dynamical cluster Monte Carlo calculations. The interplay of electronic correlations and the electron-phonon interaction produces two competing effects, an enhancement of the effective d-wave pairing interaction, which favors d-wave superconductivity, and a strong renormalization of the single-particle propagator, which suppress superconductivity. Due to the later effect we find that buckling and breathing phonons suppres…
Nonequilibrium quasiparticles represent a significant source of decoherence in superconducting quantum circuits. Here we investigate the mechanism of quasiparticle poisoning in devices subjected to local quasiparticle injection. We find that quasiparticle poisoning is dominated by the propagation of pair-breaking phonons across the chip. We characterize the energy dependence of the timescale for quasiparticle poisoning. Finally, we observe that incorporation of extensive normal metal quasiparticle traps leads to a more than order of magnitude reduction in quasiparticle loss for a given injecte…
Density functional theory (DFT) based ab-initio calculations of electronic, phononic, and superconducting properties of 1T MoS2 are reported. The phonon dispersions are computed within density-functional-perturbation-theory (DFPT). We have also computed Eliashberg function alpha2Fomega and electron-phonon coupling constant lambda from the same. The superconducting transition temperature (Tc) computed within the McMillan-Allen-Dynes formula is found in good agreement with the recent experimental report. We have also evaluated the effect of pressure on the superconducting behavior of this system…
An understanding of spin excitations in cuprates is essential since the mechanism of high-T$_C$ superconductivity might be linked to spin fluctuations. Band calculations for long "1-dimensional" unit cells of La$_2$CuO$_4$ show that the coupling between antiferromagnetic spin waves and phonons is larger for distortions of oxygens than for Cu or La. When this result is applied to a 2-dimensional, free-electron like band, it leads to a q-dependent spin excitation spectrum in good agreement with recent experiments. It is argued that important parameters for spin-phonon coupling, which comes out f…
It has been proposed that there are two types of superconductivity in CeCu2Si2, mediated by spin fluctuations at ambient pressure, and by critical valence fluctuations around a charge instability at a pressure P_v \simeq 4.5 GPa. We present in detail some of the unusual features of this novel type of superconducting state, including the coexistence of superconductivity and huge residual resistivity of the order of the Ioffe-Regel limit, large and pressure dependent resistive transition widths in a single crystal measured under hydrostatic conditions, asymmetric pressure dependence of the speci…
We study the superconductivity of strongly coupled electron-phonon systems where the geometry of the lattice frustrates the charge order by the sign-problem-free Quantum Monte Carlo(QMC) method. The results suggest that with charge order frustrated, the superconductivity can benefit from strong electron-phonon interaction in a wide range of coupling strengths.
I present the results of first principles calculations of the phonon dispersions and electron-phonon coupling for BaTi$_2$Sb$_2$O. The phonon dispersions show a weak lattice instability near the zone corners that leads to a charge-density wave phase. The calculations of the electron-phonon coupling reveal strong coupling, especially to the in-plane Ti modes. The total coupling is large enough to readily explain the superconductivity in this compound. As the Fermi surfaces are disconnected with different orbital character weights, this compound is likely to host a multiband superconductivity.
We report on a pressure-induced evolution of exotic superconductivity and spin correlations in CeIr(In$_{1-x}$Cd$_{x}$)$_5$ by means of In-Nuclear-Quadrupole-Resonance (NQR) studies. Measurements of an NQR spectrum and nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation rate $1/T_1$ have revealed that antiferromagnetism induced by the Cd-doping emerges locally around Cd dopants, but superconductivity is suddenly induced at $T_c$ = 0.7 and 0.9 K at 2.34 and 2.75 GPa, respectively. The unique superconducting characteristics with a large fraction of the residual density of state at the Fermi level that increases wit…
Recently, the possibility of inducing superconductivity for electrons in two dimensional materials has been proposed via cavity-mediated pairing. The cavity-mediated electron-electron interactions are long range, which has two main effects: firstly, within the standard BCS-type pairing mediated by adiabatic photons, the superconducting critical temperature depends polynomially on the coupling strength, instead of the exponential dependence characterizing the phonon-mediated pairing; secondly, as we show here, the effect of photon fluctuations is significantly enhanced. These mediate novel non-…
The effective attractive interaction between electrons, mediated by electron-phonon coupling, is a well-established mechanism of conventional superconductivity. In metals exhibiting a Fermi surface, the critical temperature of superconductivity is exponentially smaller than the characteristic phonon energy. Therefore such superconductors are found only at temperatures below a few Kelvin. Systems with flat energy bands have been suggested to cure the problem and provide a route to room-temperature superconductivity, but previous studies are limited to only BCS models with an effective attractiv…
Comment on 2501.17230 and 2502.00103 "Phonon-mediated electron attraction in SrTiO3 via the generalized Frohlich and deformation potential mechanisms" and "Theory of ab initio downfolding with arbitrary range electron-phonon coupling"
We predict that electron-doped silicene is a good two-dimensional electron-phonon superconductor under biaxial tensile strain by first-principles calculations within rigid band approximation. Superconductivity transition temperature of electron-doped silicene can be increased to be above 10 K by 5% tensile strain. Band structures, phonon dispersive relations, and Eliashberg functions are calculated for detailed analysis. The strong interaction between acoustic phonon modes normal to the silicene plane and the increasing electronic states around the Fermi level induced by tensile strain is main…
To study the possible mechanism of superconductivity in Na$_{0.35}$CoO$_2$, we examine the interaction between all the relevant optical phonons (breathing and shear phonons) and $t_{2g}(a_{1g}+e_g')$-electrons of Co-ions, and study the transition temperature for a s-wave superconductivity. The obtained $T_{\rm c}$ is very low when the $e_g'$-valence-bands are far below the Fermi level. However, $T_{\rm c}$ is strongly enhanced when the top of the $e_g'$-valence-bands is close to the Fermi level (say -50meV), thanks to interband hopping of Cooper pairs caused by shear phonons. This ``valence-ba…
We propose a mechanism for robust BCS-like superconductivity in graphene placed in the vicinity of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Electrons in the graphene interact with the excitations above the condensate, called Bogoliubov quasiparticles (or bogolons). It turns out that bogolon-pair-mediated interaction allows us to surpass the long-standing problem of the vanishing density of states of particles with a linear spectrum. This results in a dramatic enhancement of the superconducting properties of graphene while keeping its relativistic dispersion. We study the behavior of the superconducting gap…
We investigate the spin-triplet superconductivity mediated by phonons in quasi-one-dimensional (Q1D) systems with open Fermi surfaces. We obtain the ground state phase diagrams. It is found that spin-triplet superconductivity occurs for weak screening and strong on-site Coulomb interaction, even in the absence of any additional nonphonon pairing interactions. We find that the nodeless spin-triplet state is more favorable than the spin-triplet state with line nodes, for the parameter values of the Q1D superconductors (TMTSF)_2X. We also find that Q1D open Fermi surface, which is the specific fe…
Insight into why superconductivity in pristine and doped monolayer graphene seems strongly suppressed has been central for the recent years' various creative approaches to realize superconductivity in graphene and graphene-like systems. We provide further insight by studying electron-phonon coupling and superconductivity in doped monolayer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride based on intrinsic phonon modes. Solving the graphene gap equation using a detailed model for the effective attraction based on electron tight binding and phonon force constant models, the various system parameters can be…
