Unconventional superconductivity without doping in infinite-layer nickelates under pressure
Simone Di Cataldo, Paul Worm, Jan M. Tomczak, Liang Si, Karsten Held
Abstract
Abstract High-temperature unconventional superconductivity quite generically emerges from doping a strongly correlated parent compound, often (close to) an antiferromagnetic insulator. The recently developed dynamical vertex approximation is a state-of-the-art technique that has quantitatively predicted the superconducting dome of nickelates. Here, we apply it to study the effect of pressure in the infinite-layer nickelate Sr x Pr 1− x NiO 2 . We reproduce the increase of the critical temperature ( T c ) under pressure found in experiment up to 12 GPa. According to our results, T c can be further increased with higher pressures. Even without Sr-doping the parent compound, PrNiO 2 , will become a high-temperature superconductor thanks to a strongly enhanced self-doping of the Ni $${d}_{{x}^{2}-{y}^{2}}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>d</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>x</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>y</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> </mml:math> orbital under pressure. With a maximal T c of 100 K around 100 GPa, nickelate superconductors can reach that of the best cuprates.