Prediction of phonon-mediated superconductivity with high critical temperature in the two-dimensional topological semimetal W2N3

TL;DR

This paper predicts a high-temperature 2D superconductor, W2N3, with topological properties, and explores how doping and strain affect its electron-phonon interactions and potential coexistence of superconductivity with topological edge states.

Contribution

It introduces W2N3 as a promising 2D superconductor with topological features and analyzes how external factors influence its superconducting and electronic properties.

Findings

Superconducting transition temperature of 21-28 K in W2N3

Large variation in electron-phonon interactions with doping and strain

Potential for coexistence of superconductivity and topological edge states

Abstract

Two-dimensional superconductors attract great interest both for their fundamental physics and for their potential applications, especially in the rapidly growing field of quantum computing. Despite intense theoretical and experimental efforts, materials with a reasonably high transition temperature are still rare. Even more rare are those that combine superconductivity with a non-trivial band topology, to potentially host exotic states of matter such as Majorana fermions. Here, we predict a remarkably high superconducting critical temperature of 21-28 K in the easily exfoliable, topologically non-trivial 2D semimetal W2N3 . By studying its electronic and superconducting properties as a function of doping and strain, we find large changes in the electron-phonon interactions that make this material a unique platform to study different coupling regimes and test the limits of current theories of superconductivity. Last, we discuss the possibility of tuning the material to achieve coexistence of superconductivity and topologically non-trivial edge states.