The high-pressure superconductivity in SiH4: the strong-coupling approach

TL;DR

This study investigates the thermodynamic properties of high-pressure SiH4 superconductivity at 250 GPa using Eliashberg equations, revealing how critical temperature and energy gap vary with Coulomb pseudopotential.

Contribution

It provides detailed calculations of superconducting parameters in SiH4 under high pressure using a strong-coupling Eliashberg approach, which is novel for this material and pressure range.

Findings

Critical temperature decreases from 51.65 K to 20.62 K with increasing Coulomb pseudopotential.

The energy gap ratio 2Δ(0)/kBTc decreases from 4.10 to 3.84.

Electron effective mass reaches up to 1.95 times the band mass at Tc.

Abstract

In the paper, the thermodynamic parameters of the high-pressure superconducting state in the SiH$_4$ compound have been determined ($p=250$ GPa). By using the Eliashberg equations in the mixed representation, the critical temperature, the energy gap, and the electron effective mass have been calculated. It has been stated that the critical temperature ($T_{C}$) decreases from 51.65 K to 20.62 K, if the Coulomb pseudopotential increases ($\mu^{\star}\in 0.1,0.3$). The dimensionless ratio $2\Delta\(0\)/k_{B}T_{C}$ decreases from 4.10 to 3.84, where the symbol $\Delta\(0\)$ denotes the value of the order parameter close to the zero temperature. The ratio of the electron effective mass to the band electron mass is high, and it reaches maximum equal to 1.95 for the critical temperature.