Superconductivity in hole-doped C60 from electronic correlations

TL;DR

This paper develops a model for the electronic interactions in hole-doped C60, revealing how electron-electron correlations significantly influence superconductivity, especially on the [100] surface, deviating from traditional BCS predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a symmetry-based, multi-band model for C60 with on-site interactions and demonstrates their impact on superconducting properties through mean-field calculations.

Findings

Electron-electron interactions alter the density of states with doping.

Doping dependence of transition temperature differs from BCS expectations.

Multi-band effects are crucial for understanding superconductivity in C60.

Abstract

We derive a model for the highest occupied molecular orbital band of a C60 crystal which includes on-site electron-electron interactions. The form of the interactions are based on the icosahedral symmetry of the C60 molecule together with a perturbative treatment of an isolated C60 molecule. Using this model we do a mean-field calculation in two dimensions on the [100] surface of the crystal. Due to the multi-band nature we find that electron-electron interactions can have a profound effect on the density of states as a function of doping. The doping dependence of the transition temperature can then be qualitatively different from that expected from simple BCS theory based on the density of states from band structure calculations.