Strong Coupling Superconductivity in Ca-Intercalated Bilayer Graphene on SiC

Nano Lett. 2022 Sep 28;22(18):7651-7658. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c02804. Epub 2022 Sep 6.

Abstract

The metal-intercalated bilayer graphene has a flat band with a high density of states near the Fermi energy and thus is anticipated to exhibit an enhanced strong correlation effect and associated fascinating phenomena, including superconductivity. By using a self-developed multifunctional scanning tunneling microscope, we succeeded in observing the superconducting energy gap and diamagnetic response of a Ca-intercalated bilayer graphene below a critical temperature of 8.83 K. The revealed high value of gap ratio, 2Δ/kBTc ≈ 5.0, indicates a strong coupling superconductivity, while the variation of penetration depth with temperature and magnetic field indicates an isotropic s-wave superconductor. These results provide crucial experimental clues for understanding the origin and mechanism of superconductivity in carrier-doped graphene.

Keywords: bilayer graphene; pairing symmetry; penetration depth; scanning tunneling spectroscopy; superconductivity; two-coil mutual inductance measurement.