Potassium-doped terphenyl has recently attracted attention as a potential host for high-transition-temperature superconductivity. Here, we elucidate the many-body electronic structure of recently synthesized potassium-doped terphenyl crystals. We show that this system may be understood as a set of weakly coupled one-dimensional ladders. Depending on the strength of the inter-ladder coupling the system may exhibit spin-gapped valence-bond solid or antiferromagnetic phases, both of which upon hole doping may give rise to superconductivity. This terphenyl-based ladder material serves as a new platform for investigating the fate of ladder phases in presence of three-dimensional coupling as well as for novel superconductivity.
@article{arxiv.2108.09308,
title = {Strongly correlated ladders in K-doped $p$-terphenyl crystals},
author = {John Sous and Natalia A. Gadjieva and Colin Nuckolls and David R. Reichman and Andrew J. Millis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.09308},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
6 pages main text + 3 pages supplementary information, 4 figures main text