Spontaneous spin superconductor state in ABCA-stacked tetralayer graphene

TL;DR

This paper theoretically predicts a spontaneous spin superconductor state in ABCA-stacked tetralayer graphene, driven by electron interactions, with potential for high-temperature super-spintronics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel spin superconducting state in tetralayer graphene, supported by a developed BCS-type theory and analysis of phase stability under electron interactions.

Findings

Spin SC gap up to 7.0 meV

Critical temperature around 45 K

Demonstration of spin-current Josephson effect

Abstract

We theoretically demonstrate a spontaneous spin superconductor (SC) state in ABCA-stacked tetralayer graphene, under sequential effects of electron-electron (e-e) and electron-hole (e-h) interactions. First of all, we examine the ferromagnetic (FM) exchange instability and phase diagram of the system induced by the long-range e-e interaction. At non- or low-doping levels, the interaction trends to stabilize a FM phase with the coexisting electron and hole carriers. Superior to bilayer and trilayer systems, tetralayer graphene has a larger FM phase region and spin splitting, making it more advantageous to realize the spin SC state. Subsequently, we prove that the FM phase becomes unstable when attractive e-h interaction is considered. As a consequence, the spin SC state can be spontaneously formed at low temperature, where spin-triplet exciton pairs act as the equivalent of Cooper pairs. We further develop a consistent BCS-type theory for the spin SC state in ABCA-stacked graphene. The predicted spin superconducting gap can reach about $7.0$ meV, with a critical temperature of about 45 K for non-doping system. At last, we demonstrated a spin-current Josephson effect in the ABCA-stacked graphene spin SC heterojunction. Our findings enrich the prospective spin SC candidate materials, illuminating more possibilities for achieving non-dissipative super-spintronics.