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Microscopic Theory of Superconducting Phase Diagram in Infinite-Layer Nickelates

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2022-07-20 v1 Superconductivity

Abstract

Since the discovery of superconductivity in infinite-layer nickelates RNiO2_2 (R=La, Pr, Nd), great research efforts have been paid to unveil its underlying superconducting mechanism. However, the physical origin of the intriguing hole-doped superconductivity phase diagram, characterized by a superconductivity dome sandwiched between two weak insulators, is still unclear. Here, we present a microscopic theory for electronic structure of nickelates from a fundamental model-based perspective. We found that the appearance of weak insulator phase in lightly and heavily hole-doped regime is dominated by Mottness and Hundness, respectively, exhibiting a unique orbital-selective doping originated from the competition of Hund interaction and crystal field splitting. Moreover, the superconducting phase can also be created in the "mixed" transition regime between Mott-insulator and Hund-induced insulator, exactly reproducing the experimentally observed superconducting phase diagram. Our findings not only demonstrate the orbital-dependent strong-correlation physics in Ni 3dd states, but also provide a unified understanding of superconducting phase diagram in hole-doped infinite-layer nickelates, which are distinct from the well-established paradigms in cuprates and iron pnictides.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.01677,
  title  = {Microscopic Theory of Superconducting Phase Diagram in Infinite-Layer Nickelates},
  author = {T. Y. Xie and Z. Liu and Chao Cao and Z. F. Wang and J. L. Yang and W. Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.01677},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

17 pages, 11 figures, 4 Tables; comments are welcome