Ultranarrow superconductors are in the strong quantum confinement regime with formation of multiple coherent condensates associated with the many subbands of the electronic structure. Here we analyze the multiband BCS-BEC crossover induced by the chemical potential tuned close to a subband bottom, in correspondence of a superconducting shape resonance. The evolution of the condensate fraction and of the pair correlation length in the ground state as functions of the chemical potential demonstrates the tunability of the BCS-BEC crossover for the condensate component of the selected subband. The extension of the crossover regime increases when the pairing strength and/or the characteristic energy of the interaction get larger. Our results indicate the coexistence of large and small Cooper pairs in the crossover regime, leading to the optimal parameter configuration for high transition temperature superconductivity.
Ultranarrow superconductors are in the strong quantum confinement regime with formation of multiple coherent condensates associated with the many subbands of the electronic structure. Here we analyze the multiband BCS-BEC crossover induced by the chemical potential tuned close to a subband bottom, in correspondence of a superconducting shape resonance. The evolution of the condensate fraction and of the pair correlation length in the ground state as functions of the chemical potential demonstrates the tunability of the BCS-BEC crossover for the condensate component of the selected subband. The extension of the crossover regime increases when the pairing strength and/or the characteristic energy of the interaction get larger. Our results indicate the coexistence of large and small Cooper pairs in the crossover regime, leading to the optimal parameter configuration for high transition temperature superconductivity.
Superconductivity in iron-based, magnesium diborides, and other novel superconducting materials has a strong multi-band and multi-gap character. Recent experiments support the possibillity for a BCS-BEC crossover induced by strong-coupling and proximity of the chemical potential to the band edge of one of the bands. Here we study the simplest theoretical model which accounts for the BCS-BEC crossover in a two-band superconductor, considering tunable interactions and tunable energy separations between the bands. Mean-field results for condensate fraction, correlation length, and superconducting gap are reported in typical crossover diagrams to locate the boundaries of the BCS, crossover, and BEC regimes. When the superconducting gap is of the order of the local chemical potential, superconductivity is in the crossover regime of the BCS-BEC crossover and the Fermi surface of the small band is smeared by the gap opening. In this situation, small and large Cooper pairs coexist in the total condensate, which is the optimal condition for high-Tc superconductivity. The ratio between the gap and the Fermi energy in a given band results to be the best detection parameter for experiments to locate the system in the BCS-BEC crossover. Using available experimental data, our analysis shows that iron-based superconductors have the partial condensate of the small Fermi surface in the crossover regime of the BCS-BEC crossover, supporting the recent ARPES findings.
Tuning across the BCS-BEC crossover in the multiband superconductor Fe1+ySexTe1−x : An angle-resolved photoemission study
The crossover from Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductivity to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is difficult to realize in quantum materials because, unlike in ultracold atoms, one cannot tune the pairing interaction. We realize the BCS-BEC crossover in a nearly compensated semimetal Fe1+ySexTe1−x by tuning the Fermi energy, εF, via chemical doping, which permits us to systematically change Δ/εF from 0.16 to 0.5 were Δ is the superconducting (SC) gap. We use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to measure the Fermi energy, the SC gap and characteristic changes in the SC state electronic dispersion as the system evolves from a BCS to a BEC regime. Our results raise important questions about the crossover in multiband superconductors which go beyond those addressed in the context of cold atoms.
We have analyzed the doping and temperature dependencies of the physical properties of a square-lattice narrow-band superconductor with a relevant for systems with local Hubbard repulsion nematic pairing due to effective nearest-neighbor attraction. Our focus was a possible crossover of the system from the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconductivity to the Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) regimes with increasing temperature. We have found that in the d-channel the crossover does not take place at realistic values of doping and temperature, and even at a large attraction, i.e., the system is always in the BCS regime, unlike the “usual” d-wave superconductor. Contrary to non-nematic d-wave superconductors, the chemical potential μ always grows with temperature increase that might indicate an unexpectedly large size of Cooper pairs. At the same time, in the s-channel, we have found a BCS–BEC crossover with temperature for a wide range of temperatures even at rather high dopings, nf ≈ 0.2. This result is different from the “usual” s-case, where a narrow-band (i.e., at strong coupling) system is always in the BEC state. We have found for a given large value of attraction that there is a value of doping when for a wide range of temperature the system is in a “pre-crossover” regime with μ ≈ 0, i.e., in a regime of coexistence of local and extended pairs. Thus, in narrow-band systems a “usual” s-superconductor is in a BEC state, but in the nematic case one can expect a BCS–to–BEC crossover with temperature growth at realistic system parameters, i.e., the crossover might be measured experimentally.
In multiband superconductivity, the case where the single electron hopping between different Fermi surface spots of different symmetry is forbidden by selection rules is recently attracting a large interest. The focus is addressed to superconductivity made of multiple condensates with different symmetry where the chemical potential crosses a 2.5 Lifshitz transition. This can now be investigated experimentally by fine-tuning of the chemical potential in the range of tens meV around a band edge using gate voltage control. We discuss here the case of a superconducting two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), at the interface between two insulating oxides confined within a slab of 5 nanometers thickness, where the electronic structure is made of subbands generated by quantum size effects. We obtain shape resonances in the superconducting gaps, characterisc gaps to T c ratios and the BCS-BEC crossover in the upper subband for different pairing strength in the shallow Fermi surface, pointing toward the best configurations for enhanced superconductivity in 2DEG.
A combination of strong Cooper pairing and weak superconducting fluctuations is crucial to achieve and stabilize high-Tc superconductivity. We demonstrate that a coexistence of a shallow carrier band with strong pairing and a deep band with weak pairing, together with the Josephson-like pair transfer between the bands to couple the two condensates, realizes an optimal multicomponent superconductivity regime: it preserves strong pairing to generate large gaps and a very high critical temperature but screens the detrimental superconducting fluctuations, thereby suppressing the pseudogap state. Surprisingly, we find that the screening is very efficient even when the interband coupling is very small. Thus, a multiband superconductor with a coherent mixture of condensates in the BCS regime (deep band) and in the BCS-BEC crossover regime (shallow band) offers a promising route to higher critical temperatures.
Quantum-size oscillations of the basic physical characteristics of a confined fermionic condensate are a well-known phenomenon. Its conventional understanding is based on the single-particle physics, whereby the oscillations follow variations in the single-particle density of states driven by the size quantization. Here we present a study of a cigar-shaped ultracold superfluid Fermi gas, which demonstrates an important many-body aspect of the quantum-size coherent effects, overlooked previously. The many-body physics is revealed here in the atypical crossover from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) induced by the size quantization of the particle motion. The single-particle energy spectrum for the transverse dimensions is tightly bound, whereas for the longitudinal direction it resembles a quasi-free dispersion. This results in the formation of a series of single-particle subbands (shells) so that the aggregate fermionic condensate becomes a coherent mixture of subband condensates. Each time when the lower edge of a subband crosses the chemical potential, the BCS-BEC crossover is approached in this subband, and the aggregate condensate contains both BCS and BEC-like components.