Discovery of Sodium-Doped Triphenylene Superconductors by Searching the Organic Material Database
Taekyung Yoon, Ina Park, Thao P. Nguyen, Duck Young Kim, Jin‐Ho Lee, Ji Hoon Shim, Hee Cheul Choi
Abstract
Over the past few decades, there has been a lot of research on organic molecule-based materials for future advanced technology. The superconductivity has also been reported in various carbon-based organic materials in line with this trend. In particular, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been intensively studied in recent years because of the highly conjugated characteristics of the delocalized electrons supplied by alkali metal doping. Here, we report on a PAH superconductor, sodium-doped triphenylene (nominal composition of Na3triphenylene), which was discovered by searching the database of PAH molecules with a small energy difference between the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and LUMO + 1 states. As the first sodium-doped PAH superconductor, it shows the superconducting transition at Tc ≈ 15 K under ambient pressure. The discovery of the new PAH superconductor suggests the promising possibility of superconductivity from more diverse molecular structures and the realization of high-Tc organic superconductors furthermore.