Electronic correlations, Jahn-Teller distortions and Mott transition to superconductivity in alkali-C60 compounds

TL;DR

This paper explores how electronic correlations and Jahn-Teller distortions influence the Mott transition and superconductivity in alkali-doped C60 compounds, challenging the simple BCS explanation and highlighting the importance of correlations.

Contribution

It demonstrates the significant role of electron correlations and Jahn-Teller distortions in the electronic behavior and superconductivity of alkali-C60 compounds, supported by experimental and theoretical evidence.

Findings

Mott insulating phases in Cs3C60 are pressure-induced to become superconducting.

Deviations from BCS behavior observed near the Mott transition.

Electronic correlations significantly affect the properties of alkali-C60 compounds.

Abstract

The discovery in 1991 of high temperature superconductivity (SC) in A3C60 compounds, where A is an alkali ion, has been rapidly ascribed to a BCS mechanism, in which the pairing is mediated by on ball optical phonon modes. While this has lead to consider that electronic correlations were not important in these compounds, further studies of various AnC60 with n=1, 2, 4 allowed to evidence that their electronic properties cannot be explained by a simple progressive band filling of the C60 six-fold degenerate t1u molecular level. This could only be ascribed to the simultaneous influence of electron correlations and Jahn-Teller Distortions (JTD) of the C60 ball, which energetically favour evenly charged C60 molecules. This is underlined by the recent discovery of two expanded fulleride Cs3C60 isomeric phases which are Mott insulators at ambient pressure. Both phases undergo a pressure induced first order Mott transition to SC with a (p, T) phase diagram displaying a dome shaped SC, a common situation encountered nowadays in correlated electron systems. NMR experiments allowed us to study the magnetic properties of the Mott phases and to evidence clear deviations from BCS expectations near the Mott transition. So, although SC involves an electron-phonon mechanism, the incidence of electron correlations has an importance on the electronic properties, as had been anticipated from DMFT calculations.