Rare-earth diantimondes exhibit coupling between structural and electronic orders which are tunable under pressure and temperature. Here we present the discovery of a new polymorph of LaSb2 stabilized in thin films synthesized using molecular beam epitaxy. Using diffraction, electron microscopy, and first principles calculations we identify a YbSb2-type monoclinic lattice as a yet-uncharacterized stacking configuration. The material hosts superconductivity with a Tc = 2 K, which is enhanced relative to the bulk ambient phase, and a long superconducting coherence length of 140 nm. This result highlights the potential thin film growth has in stabilizing novel stacking configurations in quasi-two dimensional compounds with competing layered structures.
@article{arxiv.2402.09349,
title = {Monoclinic LaSb$_2$ Superconducting Thin Films},
author = {Adrian Llanos and Giovanna Campisi and Veronica Show and Jinwoong Kim and Reiley Dorrian and Salva Salmani-Rezaie and Nicholas Kioussis and Joseph Falson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.09349},
year = {2026}
}