Enhanced superconductivity in quasiperiodic crystals

• Published in: Physical review research Vol. 3; no. 2; p. 023195
• Main Authors: Fan, Zhijie, Chern, Gia-Wei, Lin, Shi-Zeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physical Society 01.06.2021
• ISSN: 2643-1564; 2643-1564
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023195

We study superconductivity in a family of one-dimensional incommensurate systems with s-wave pairing interaction. The incommensurate potential can alter the spatial characteristics of electrons in the normal state, leading to either extended, critical, or localized wave functions. We find that superconductivity is significantly enhanced when the electronic wave function exhibits a critical multifractal structure. This criticality also manifests itself in the power-law dependence of the superconducting temperature on the pairing strength. As a consequence, an extended superconducting dome is expected to exist around the localization-delocalization transition, which can be induced by either tuning the amplitude of the incommensurate potential or by varying the chemical potential across a mobility edge. Our results thus suggest a different approach to enhance the superconducting transition temperature through engineering of the incommensurate potential.