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High-TC Superconductivity Originating from Interlayer Coulomb Coupling in Gate-Charged Twisted Bilayer Graphene Moiré Superlattices

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Abstract

Unconventional superconductivity in bilayer graphene has been reported for twist angles θ near the first magic angle and charged electrostatically with holes near half filling of the lower flat bands. A maximum superconducting transition temperature TC ≈ 1.7 K was reported for a device with θ = 1.05° at ambient pressure and a maximum TC ≈ 3.1 K for a device with θ = 1.27° under 1.33 GPa hydrostatic pressure. A high-TC model for the superconductivity is proposed herein, where pairing is mediated by Coulomb coupling between charges in the two graphene sheets. The expression derived for the optimal transition temperature, TC0 = kB−1Λ(|nopt − n0|/2)1/2e2/ζ, is a function of mean bilayer separation distance ζ, measured gated charge areal densities nopt and n0 corresponding to maximum TC and superconductivity onset, respectively, and the length constant Λ = 0.00747(2) Å. Based on existing experimental carrier densities and theoretical estimates for ζ, TC0 = 1.94(4) K is calculated for the θ = 1.05° ambient-pressure device and TC0 = 3.02(3) K for the θ = 1.27° pressurized device. Experimental mean-field transition temperatures TCmf = 1.83(5) K and TCmf = 2.86(5) K are determined by fitting superconducting fluctuation theory to resistance transition data for the ambient-pressure and pressurized devices, respectively; the theoretical results for TC0 are in remarkable agreement with these experimental values. Corresponding Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless temperatures TBKT of 0.96(3) K and 2.2(2) K are also determined and interpreted.

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Notes

  1. Strains of 0.6 to 0.7% in uncapped magic-angle TBG structures were determined from scanning tunneling microscopy [4].

  2. Data points are taken at the visible dots and at approximate locations where the dots appear to be obscured. Line segments connecting dots are assumed to be guides to the eye and are ignored.

  3. The ostensibly increased corrugation amplitude near magic angle θ is strongly dependent upon gate bias, diminishing with increasing bias voltage [65, 66].

  4. Together with sheet resistance R(TBKT) on the order of 0.5 Ω (roughly estimated by extrapolating and scaling the measured R(T)/R4.5K), a relaxation time LBKT/R(TBKT) of order 10 ns is predicted for supercurrent flow at T ≈ 2.2 K.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for support from the College of William and Mary, New Jersey Institute of Technology and The University of Notre Dame. We also thank Y. Cao for supplemental information.

Funding

This study was supported by Physikon Research Corporation (Project No. PL-206) and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

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  1. Department of Physics, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 23187, USA

    Dale R. Harshman

  2. Department of Physics, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Anthony T. Fiory

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Harshman, D.R., Fiory, A.T. High-TC Superconductivity Originating from Interlayer Coulomb Coupling in Gate-Charged Twisted Bilayer Graphene Moiré Superlattices. J Supercond Nov Magn 33, 367–378 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10948-019-05183-9

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