Scalability of non-adiabatic effects in lithium-decorated graphene superconductor

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-adiabatic effects influence superconductivity in lithium-decorated graphene, revealing their significant impact and scaling behavior, which challenges previous assumptions and suggests new ways to enhance superconductivity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that non-adiabatic effects reduce superconducting parameters in LiC₆ and scale with phonon energy and electron-phonon coupling, offering new insights into superconductivity in this material.

Findings

Non-adiabatic effects significantly suppress superconductivity in LiC₆.

Non-adiabaticity scales with phonon energy and inversely with electron-phonon coupling.

Superconductivity in LiC₆ is more peculiar than previously thought.

Abstract

The analysis is conducted to unveil how the non-adiabatic effects scale within the superconducting phase of lithium-decorated graphene (LiC$_{6}$). Based on the Eliashberg formalism it is shown that the non-adiabatic effects notably reduce essential superconducting parameters in LiC$_{6}$ and arise as a significant oppressor of the discussed phase. Moreover, nonadiabaticity is found to scale with the strength of superconductivity, proportionally to the phonon energy scale and inversely with respect to the electron-phonon coupling. These findings are partially in contrast to other theoretical studies and show that superconductivity in LiC$_{6}$ is more peculiar than previously anticipated. In this context, the guidelines for enhancing superconducting phase in LiC$_{6}$ and sibling materials are also proposed.