The NQPI Colloquium Series presents Hanno Weitering of JIAM’s Deputy Director Hanno Weitering and The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on “Potential for High-Temperature Superconductivity on a Silicon Platform”, on Thursday, Nov. 29, at 4:10 p.m. in Clippinger Labs 194.
Hanno Weitering
Abstract: The rich physics of doped Mott insulators is at the heart of high-temperature superconductivity in complex oxide compounds, although the precise mechanism for high temperature superconductivity is still up for debate. Advances in this field would greatly benefit from the availability of new material systems with similar richness of physical phenomena, ideally those that are much less complex in structure and composition, and easier to model theoretically. Here we show that such a system could potentially be realized on a silicon surface. Adsorption of one-third monolayer of Sn atoms on a Si(111) surface produces a triangular surface lattice with half-filled dangling bonds. Modulation hole-doping of these dangling bonds unveils clear hallmarks of Mott physics, and additionally produces a sharp ‘van Hove’ singularity in the density of states just below the Fermi level. At a critical doping level, we observe a strong zero-bias anomaly in the local density of states, possibly signaling the formation of a magnetic or superconducting gap. These observations are remarkably similar to those made in complex oxide materials, including the high-temperature superconductors, but highly extraordinary within the realm of conventional sp-bonded semiconductor materials. They suggest that exotic quantum matter phases could possibly be realized and engineered on silicon-based materials platforms.
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