I. Yu
Sklyadneva
*ab,
R.
Heid
b,
P. M.
Echenique
ac and
E. V.
Chulkov
acd
aDonostia International Physics Center (DIPC), 20018 San Sebastián/Donostia, Basque Country, Spain
bInstitute for Quantum Materials and Technologies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany. E-mail: rolf.heid@kit.edu
cDepartamento de Polímeros y Materiales Avanzados: Física, Química y Tecnología, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU 20080, San Sebastián/Donostia, Basque Country, Spain
dHSE University, 101000, Moscow, Russia
First published on 14th April 2022
Electron–phonon interaction in a single-layer Tl–Pb compound on Si(111) is investigated within the density-functional theory and linear-response approach in the mixed-basis pseudopotential representation. It is found that phonon-induced scattering of electrons at the Fermi level is primarily determined by surface electronic states responsible for bonding at the interface and by low-energy, predominantly shear-vertical vibrations of adatoms. The contribution of substrate-localized vibrations involved in the electron–phonon scattering turns out to be small. We have also estimated the superconducting transition temperature Tc by solving the linearized gap equation of the Eliashberg theory. An analysis of phonon-mediated transitions for a number of electronic states in the Tl–Pb surface bands showed that the strength of the coupling varies with the binding energy, increasing as it approaches the Fermi level, and significantly depends on the surface band to which the state belongs.
The experimental findings have also stimulated research activity on exploring other ultrathin superconductors, among them, a surface compound formed by metallic adsorbates, Tl and Pb, on Si(111) and Ge(111) surfaces.11–13,18–20 Both heavy metals are bulk superconductors with strong spin–orbit coupling. When alloying one monolayer (ML) of Tl with 1/3 ML of Pb a single atomic layer Tl–Pb compound with periodicity is formed. The surface metal phase exhibits both a noticeable Rashba-type spin splitting of surface electronic bands and 2D superconducting transport properties.12,19 The low-temperature conductivity measurements12 showed that the becomes superconducting at the critical temperature of 2.25 K.
Since the atomic arrangement and the electronic band structure of the compound have already been experimentally established,11,13 the available information can be used as a basis for further theoretical investigations. First of all, it seems useful to study the phonon-mediated scattering of electrons in the surface metallic bands of the Si(111)-supported Tl–Pb compound to obtain an accurate quantitative description and analysis of the e–ph interaction, which is still missing.
Here we present the results of a first-principles study focusing on the pairing strength of phonon-induced scattering processes in the compound. We calculated both the e–ph coupling parameter and Eliashberg spectral function, averaged over electron momentum at the Fermi energy, EF. Then, the superconducting transition temperature was estimated by solving the linearized gap equation. We also analyzed the strength of e–ph interaction in a number of fixed electronic states in the surface Tl–Pb bands.
(1) |
The averaged strength of electron–phonon interaction is related to the Eliashberg function by22
(2) |
All calculations were carried out within the density-functional formalism (DFT) and the generalized gradient approximation (GGA-PBE) for the exchange–correlation functional23 using the mixed-basis pseudopotential approach.24,25 The scheme employs a combination of local functions and plane waves for representing valence states.24 For ground state calculations we used an implementation of the mixed-basis method by Meyer et al.26 The norm-conserving pseudopotentials were constructed following the scheme of Vanderbilt.27 For Tl, the semicore 5d states were treated explicitly as valence states for greater accuracy.28 By using d-type local functions at each atomic site of Tl, the cutoff energy for plane waves is reduced to 20 Ry without loss of accuracy. Dynamical properties were calculated using the linear response theory29 adapted to the mixed-basis pseudopotential approach.25 In the self-consistent calculations the integrations over the SBZ were performed by sampling a uniform (12 × 12 × 1) k-point mesh in combination with a Gaussian broadening with a smearing parameter of 0.05 eV.
Due to the strong influence of spin–orbit coupling (SOC) on the two-dimensional electronic bands (spin splitting) of the compound,12 spin–orbit interaction was taken into account. The inclusion of SOC improves the agreement of the calculated bulk phonon dispersion with experiment for both Tl and Pb.28 Details of the spin–orbit coupling implementation within the mixed-basis method can be found in ref. 28.
In our calculation we did not use the +U correction to resolve the band-gap problem. As it is known the DFT may underestimate the bulk band gap but the reduction is not important for analyzing the e–ph interaction in the system of interest. The main point is the position of EF relative to the substrate valence band edge and the surface band dispersion around EF.
The lattice constant is first fixed at the theoretical bulk Si lattice parameter a = 5.402 Å obtained by total-energy minimization. It is a bit smaller than the experimental value,30aexp = 5.43 Å. A single-layer Tl–Pb compound is then deposited on the top of the substrate according to the periodicity12 (see Fig. 1(A)). The superstructure contains three Tl atoms and one Pb atom per unit cell: Tl atoms form a chained-trimer structure and are equivalent with respect to the underlying Si substrate, while 1/3 ML of Pb atoms occupy T1 (on-top) sites where the Tl trimers are centered.12 Essentially, the 2D Tl–Pb compound is confined to a single atomic layer, which is slightly buckled because Pb is 0.37 Å (0.34 Å in ref. 18) above the Tl atoms.
The bottom Si bilayer is held fixed to simulate the bulk environment. All other atoms are allowed to move both in-plane and along the stacking direction. The force criterion was chosen so as to ensure complete convergence of bond lengths with an accuracy of less than 0.01 Å. The H–Si distance was determined in the calculation of a Si(111) film saturated by H on both sides. The optimized structural parameters, namely, the bond length dTl–Tl and the difference in the heights of atoms at the interface are given in Table 1. Also shown are available experimental data from ref. 18. The optimized Tl–Si1 hight spacing is a bit shorter than the interlayer distance for the Tl(0001) surface,31hTl–Tl = 2.74 Å. We note that the structural parameters are hardly influenced by the spin–orbit coupling.
d Tl–Tl | h Tl–Si1 | h Pb–Si1 | h Pb–Tl | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Si(111) | 3.31 | 2.48 | 2.86 | 0.37 | Present calc. |
3.34 | 2.50 | 2.85 | 0.34 | Expt |
In what follows, we will address two main factors that have a significant effect on phonon-mediated electronic transitions. One of the factors determining λ is the phase space, that is, the electronic states available for scattering processes. The calculated density of electronic states at the Fermi level, N(EF) = 2.3 states/(eV unit cell spin), is close to the value at the Fermi energy of the Tl(0001) surface, NT1(0001)(EF)) = 2.12 states/(eV unit cell spin), the difference is ∼8%.
To clarify the role of Pb in the formation of the electronic structure of the compound and in the e–ph coupling, we considered the same structure, replacing Pb with Tl. The “hypothetical” (4/3) ML of Tl on Si(111) has a very similar band structure, but when Pb is replaced by Tl, the number of valence electrons in the unit cell decreases and, accordingly, the Fermi level drops. At the new position of EF, the density of electronic states N (EF) = 1.14 states/(eV unit cell spin) is more than 2 times less than for the Tl–Pb compound. The structure remains dynamically stable, but the e–ph coupling weakens by as much as a factor of 4 to λ(EF) = 0.28. Therefore, the reduction of N (EF) is not the only relevant factor in this case. Fig. 2(B) shows spectral decompositions of the e–ph coupling parameter at the Fermi level, λ(EF;ω), calculated for the Tl–Pb compound on Si(111) and for the “hypothetical” (4/3) ML of Tl on Si(111). It turns out that at the new position of the Fermi level, long-wavelength lattice vibrations (small-wave-vector phonons) hardly contribute to the scattering of electrons due to a lack of final electronic states. As a result, the spectral e–ph function is strongly suppressed in the low-frequency part up to ∼3 meV, which drastically weakens the e–ph coupling due to the weighting factor 1/ω in eqn (2). Thus, the role of Pb is twofold: (i) adding valence electrons, which increases the number of available electronic states for the pairing, and (ii) as a consequence of the new position of the Fermi level, activating low-frequency phonons for the pairing by greatly enhancing the probability of transitions mediated by these modes. Both effects lead to a fourfold increase in λ(EF) compared to the “hypothetical” (4/3) ML Tl on Si(111).
Another question is how the different surface bands are involved in the e–ph coupling. Fig. 1(D) shows the calculated band structure around EF. The SBZ symmetry points are given in Fig. 1(B). The band structure has a metallic character with two spin-split metallic surface bands and , which form the Fermi surface. The spin degeneracy is lifted in the entire SBZ, except for the high-symmetry points. On the one hand, the electronic bands participating in the e–ph interaction are formed by Tl and Pb states of px, py character (mainly ), which indicates an in-plane metallic Tl–Pb bonding. Note that the electronic states localized on Pb atoms are exclusively of the character px, py within the band gap of the substrate. On the other hand, the bands (mainly ) show a coupling of Tl pz orbitals to pz and dxz, yz orbitals of Si atoms from the topmost valence band. Moreover, these states dominate the density of states at the Fermi level, as they contribute ∼87% to the total N(EF). A detailed description of the surface band structure can be found in ref. 11–13.
On the Tl(0001) surface, an analysis of electronic states with a predominant contribution to the e–ph scattering also revealed that these states partially or completely are of pz symmetry.32 Thus, the e–ph scattering is dominated by states that build interface bonds in the compound or interlayer bonds of the Tl(0001) surface, respectively. In contrast, for the “hypothetical” (4/3) ML of Tl on Si(111), the Tl-induced electronic states prevailing in the e–ph coupling are of px,py and s types.
The participation of each electronic band in the e–ph scattering turns out to be proportional to its contribution to the density of states at EF. The bands make the largest contribution to λ(EF), ∼83%, according to their density of states at EF, 2.0 states/(eV unit cell). The share of bands is only ∼11% and ∼6% falls on the substrate.
From the spectral decomposition of λ(EF) shown in Fig. 2(B), it is obvious that the phonon-mediated scattering of electrons at the Fermi level is determined by vibrations of Tl and Pb adatoms. In the first place, these are low-energy, predominantly shear-vertical displacements. These modes form a multi-peak structure in λ(EF;ω) between 2 and 4.5 meV, although some SV vibrations of Tl atoms are coupled to the longitudinal motion of Pb atoms (the highest peak, at about 3 meV). Contribution of shear-vertical Pb modes to λ(EF) shows a peak at ∼5–5.5 meV. Since the position of Tl adatoms relative to the underlying Si surface layer is the same, the contributions to λ(EF) from vibrations of different Tl atoms are identical.
Thus, the vibrations dominating in the phonon-mediated scattering of electrons are concentrated up to ∼6 meV. The adlayer-localized modes provide ∼93% of λ(EF), while the substrate vibrations involved in the scattering of electrons contribute little. The reason is that these vibrations are predominantly high-frequency and, as a consequence, turn out to be much less important in the e–ph interaction because of the definition of λ as proportional to 1/ω.
However, transport measurements at a surface always show a lower value of Tc than that obtained by opening of the superconducting energy gap (STS), due to fluctuation effects inherent in low-dimensional superconductors38 and which can only be detected by STS.7 So, for a (4/3)-monolayer of Pb on Si(111), a dense SIC phase, STS measurements5 give Tc = 1.83 K, while conductivity measurements7 showed the superconductivity transition at 1.1 K. The theoretical estimate16 gives the value Tc for the SIC phase of Pb on Si(111) which is closer to the STS data: Tc = 1.84 K with μ* = 0.11.
The calculated transition temperature for the compound exceeds Tc = ∼2.4 K for bulk thallium.22 However, the strength of e–ph interaction in the bulk33 (∼0.8) is also noticeably less than on the surface, both for Tl(0001) and . Therefore, it is not surprising that Tbulkc < Tsurfc.
To calculate the strength of the e–ph interaction for a fixed electron state with momentum k and band index i, the state-dependent Eliashberg spectral function
(3) |
The strength of e–ph interaction for all states marked with open circles is shown in Fig. 1(E). All these states are located near the Fermi level: their energies are in the range (−0.2)–(+0.3) eV. Nevertheless, there is a significant variation in λki's from 0.3 to 1.5. Spectral decompositions of λki for four surface electronic states are shown in Fig. 2(C and D).
On the whole, for all considered states with the same electron momentum in a pair of neighboring subbands, the e–ph interaction is stronger for the electronic state, the energy of which is closer to the Fermi level. This is due to an increase in the density of electronic states as the Fermi level is approached (Fig. 1(C)). At energies very close to EF or slightly higher, surface bands at the SBZ boundary come into play, sharply increasing the phase space for the scattering of electrons. For states in a pair of neighboring subbands with close binding energies, but different electron moments, the strength of e–ph interaction depends markedly on the surface band to which the states belong.
Both S1 (band Σ1) and (band ) are surface states of s, px,y symmetry. The only difference between them is that in the contribution of Tl pz-type orbitals becomes noticeable. λki's differ in these two subbands, namely, is substantially larger than , as the spectral functions in Fig. 2(C) reveal. The calculated λki's show the same trend as the values roughly estimated experimentally for the bands from the slope of the temperature-depended linewidth:12 and .
As for the states , they do not differ in symmetry and both are characterized by the presence of a significant fraction of Tl pz orbitals responsible for the coupling to the topmost valence band Si states. As a result, the corresponding λki's are equally large. At binding energies of about 60–200 meV, the calculated strength of the e–ph interaction in the bands varies from 0.46 to 0.8, and the averaged value of λki ≈ 0.65 is close to the value extracted for the same bands from the ARPES data,12λexp = 0.6± 0.05. However, when approaching the Fermi level, the e–ph interaction in these two neighboring subbands with opposite spin orientations enhances drastically and λki → 1.4–1.5 depending on electron momentum.
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