Gate-controlled low carrier density superconductors: Toward the two-dimensional BCS-BEC crossover

Y. Nakagawa, Y. Saito, T. Nojima, K. Inumaru, S. Yamanaka, Y. Kasahara, and Y. Iwasa
Phys. Rev. B 98, 064512 – Published 24 August 2018
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Abstract

Superconductivity mostly appears in high carrier density systems and sometimes exhibits common phase diagrams in which the critical temperature Tc continuously develops with carrier density. Superconductivity enhanced in the lightly doped regime has seldom been reported, although it is an ideal direction towards the crossover between Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) and Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) limits, where the behavior of Cooper pairs changes dramatically. Here we report transport properties and superconducting gaps in single-crystalline lithium-intercalated layered nitrides (LixHfNCl and LixZrNCl) down to the low-doping regime, enabled by a combination of ionic gating device and tunneling spectroscopy. Upon the reduction of doping, both systems display the increase of Tc, up to 24.9 K especially in LixHfNCl, with the concomitant enhancement of two-dimensionality leading to a pseudogap state below 35.5 K as well as the increase of superconducting coupling strengths 2Δ/kBTc reaching 5.9. Such behavior in the carrier density region as low as 1020cm3 indicates that lightly doped two-dimensional superconductors exhibit the unprecedented nature that is distinct from that in conventional superconductors, and offer a new route to access BCS-BEC crossover.

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  • Received 28 May 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.98.064512

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Y. Nakagawa1, Y. Saito1, T. Nojima2, K. Inumaru3, S. Yamanaka3, Y. Kasahara4, and Y. Iwasa1,5,*

  • 1Quantum-Phase Electronics Center and Department of Applied Physics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
  • 2Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan
  • 3Department of Applied Chemistry, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8527, Japan
  • 4Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
  • 5RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science, Wako 351-0198, Japan

  • *iwasa@ap.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Issue

Vol. 98, Iss. 6 — 1 August 2018

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