Superconducting Graphene: the conspiracy of doping and strain

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that by applying charge doping and tensile strain, graphene can be turned into a conventional superconductor with a critical temperature around 30 K, making it potentially commercially viable.

Contribution

It reveals that combined doping and strain induce superconductivity in graphene, achieving the highest Tc for a single-element material above liquid hydrogen temperature.

Findings

Superconductivity in graphene achieved with doping and strain.

Critical temperature reaches approximately 30 K.

Strain significantly enhances electron-phonon coupling.

Abstract

Graphene has exhibited a wealth of fascinating properties, but is also known not to be a superconductor. Remarkably, we show that graphene can be made a conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductor by the combined effect of charge doping and tensile strain. While the effect of doping is obvious to enlarge Fermi surface, the effect of strain is profound to greatly increase the electron-phonon coupling. At the experimental accessible doping (4E+14cm-2) and strain (~16%) levels, the superconducting critical temperature Tc reaches as high as ~30 K, the highest for a single-element material above the liquid hydrogen temperature. This significantly makes graphene a commercially viable superconductor.