Evolution of high-temperature superconductivity from low-Tc phase tuned by carrier concentration in FeSe thin flakes

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that systematic electron doping in FeSe thin flakes can induce high-temperature superconductivity up to 48 K, revealing a Lifshitz transition and advancing understanding of superconductivity mechanisms in FeSe-based materials.

Contribution

First to show that simple electron doping via liquid-gating can induce high Tc up to 48 K in FeSe thin flakes without external pressure or interfaces.

Findings

High Tc of 48 K achieved through electron doping.

Superconductivity undergoes a Lifshitz transition at a critical carrier concentration.

Electron doping alone can induce high-temperature superconductivity in FeSe.

Abstract

In contrast to bulk FeSe superconductor, heavily electron-doped FeSe-derived superconductors show relatively high Tc without hole Fermi surfaces and nodal superconducting gap structure, which pose great challenges on pairing theories in the iron-based superconductors. In the heavily electron-doped FeSe-based superconductors, the dominant factors and the exact working mechanism that is responsible for the high Tc need to be clarified. In particular, a clean control of carrier concentration remains to be a challenge for revealing how superconductivity and Fermi surface topology evolves with carrier concentration in bulk FeSe. Here, we report the evolution of superconductivity in the FeSe thin flake with systematically regulated carrier concentrations by liquid-gating technique. High-temperature superconductivity at 48 K can be achieved only with electron doping tuned by gate voltage in FeSe thin flake with Tc less than 10 K. This is the first time to achieve such a high temperature superconductivity in FeSe without either epitaxial interface or external pressure. It definitely proves that the simple electron-doping process is able to induce high-temperature superconductivity with Tc as high as 48 K in bulk FeSe. Intriguingly, our data also indicates that the superconductivity is suddenly changed from low-Tc phase to high-Tc phase with a Lifshitz transition at certain carrier concentration. These results help us to build a unified picture to understand the high-temperature superconductivity among all FeSe-derived superconductors and shed light on further pursuit of higher Tc in these materials.