Superatomic crystals are composed of discrete modular clusters that emulate the role of atoms in traditional atomic solids1−4. Owing to their unique hierarchical structures, these materials are promising candidates to host exotic phenomena, such as superconductivity and magnetism that can be revealed through doping5−10. Low-dimensional superatomic crystals hold great promise as electronic components11,12, enabling these properties to be applied to nanocircuits, but the impact of doping in such compounds remains unexplored. Here we report the electrical transport properties of Re6Se8Cl2, a two-dimensional superatomic semiconductor13,14. Using an in situ current annealing technique, we find that this compound can be n-doped through Cl dissociation, drastically altering the transport behaviour from semiconducting to metallic and giving rise to superconductivity below ∼ 9 K. This work is the first example of superconductivity in a van der Waals (vdW) superatomic crystal; more broadly, it establishes a new chemical strategy to manipulate the electronic properties of vdW materials with labile ligands.
@article{arxiv.1906.10785,
title = {Doping-induced superconductivity in the van der Waals superatomic crystal Re$_6$Se$_8$Cl$_2$},
author = {Evan J. Telford and Jake C. Russell and Joshua R. Swann and Brandon Fowler and Xiaoman Wang and Kihong Lee and Amirali Zangiabadi and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Colin Nuckolls and Patrick Batail and Xiaoyang Zhu and Jonathan A. Malen and Cory R. Dean and Xavier Roy},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.10785},
year = {2020}
}