The superfluid weight is one of the defining properties of superconductors. It has been discovered that there is not only a band dispersion dependent conventional contribution to the superfluid weight but also a geometric contribution, which can enable superconductivity in flat bands hosted by systems such as the Lieb lattice [1]. We investigate the superfluid weight in two different lattice models, which extend the Lieb lattice. The derivative diagonally striped and the Lieb-N lattice families both have varying numbers of flat bands at the Fermi level and are therefore ideal to observe the contribution of the flat bands to the superfluid weight. We find that the flat bands of the lattice families can be classified into singular and non-singular flat bands [2] and that this classification is connected to their contribution to the superfluid weight. [1] S. Peotta and P. Törmä, Nat. Comm. 2015 [2] J. Rhim and B. Yang, PRB 2019
The superfluid weight is one of the defining properties of superconductors. It has been discovered that there is not only a band dispersion dependent conventional contribution to the superfluid weight but also a geometric contribution, which can enable superconductivity in flat bands hosted by systems such as the Lieb lattice [1]. We investigate the superfluid weight in two different lattice models, which extend the Lieb lattice. The derivative diagonally striped and the Lieb-N lattice families both have varying numbers of flat bands at the Fermi level and are therefore ideal to observe the contribution of the flat bands to the superfluid weight. We find that the flat bands of the lattice families can be classified into singular and non-singular flat bands [2] and that this classification is connected to their contribution to the superfluid weight. [1] S. Peotta and P. Törmä, Nat. Comm. 2015 [2] J. Rhim and B. Yang, PRB 2019
The ground state and transport properties of the Lieb lattice flat band in the presence of an attractive Hubbard interaction are considered. It is shown that the superfluid weight can be large even for an isolated and strictly flat band. Moreover the superfluid weight is proportional to the interaction strength and to the quantum metric, a band structure quantity derived solely from the flat-band Bloch functions. These predictions are amenable to verification with ultracold gases and may explain the anomalous behavior of the superfluid weight of high-T_{c} superconductors.
Universal suppression of superfluid weight by non-magnetic disorder in s-wave superconductors independent of quantum geometry and band dispersion
Motivated by the experimental progress in controlling the properties of the energy bands in superconductors, significant theoretical efforts have been devoted to study the effect of the quantum geometry and the flatness of the dispersion on the superfluid weight. In conventional superconductors, where the energy bands are wide and the Fermi energy is large, the contribution due to the quantum geometry is negligible, but in the opposite limit of flat-band superconductors the superfluid weight originates purely from the quantum geometry of Bloch wave functions. Here, we study how the energy band dispersion and the quantum geometry affect the disorder-induced suppression of the superfluid weight. In particular, we consider non-magnetic disorder and s-wave superconductivity. Surprisingly, we find that the disorder-dependence of the superfluid weight is universal across a variety of models, and independent of the quantum geometry and the flatness of the dispersion. Our results suggest that a flat-band superconductor is as resilient to disorder as a conventional superconductor.
In this thesis, superconductivity of fermions in two-dimensional Hubbard lattice models is theoretically studied. Each of the studied lattice structures features intriguing properties that provide valuable insight to understand superconductivity in general. While real condensed matter systems are too complicated to tackle with theoretical tools, the Hubbard model is one of the simplest quantum many-body models to possess a wide spectrum of physically relevant phenomena, from superconductivity to magnetism and topological order. Hubbard models are also interesting as they can be experimentally realized and accurately controlled by utilizing ultracold gases.
The first part of the thesis explains the required theoretical background of superconductivity in the level of mean-field and linear response theories. Specifically, we primarily focus on the superfluid weight which implies the existence of the Meissner effect and dissipationless current, defining properties of superconductors. We further discuss how the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition, related to the loss of superconductivity due to the thermal fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter in high enough temperatures, can be accessed via the superfluid weight.
In the second part, the main results are discussed. We show how the superconductivity of lattice models featuring dispersionless Bloch bands, so-called flat bands, can be large and originating from the quantum geometric properties of the Bloch states of the flat bands. This is in contrast to conventional dispersive bands where superconductivity is determined by the effective mass of the particles, i.e. by the dispersion relation of the Bloch bands alone and not by the Bloch states. This is well demonstrated in the Lieb lattice geometry, studied in Publication I, which features both a strictly flat and two dispersive Bloch bands, allowing direct comparison of superconductivity in dispersive and flat bands. We show how the superconductivity of the flat band is more robust than that of the dispersive bands and how the superfluid weight behaves non-monotonically as a function of the interaction strength. This non-monotonic behavior should be experimentally accessible. Flat band superconductivity is also the topic of Publication III, where the experimentally realized twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) is studied with local and non-local attractive interactions. We predict qualitative differences between local and non-local interaction schemes which could be distinguished experimentally and reveal the quantum geometric origin of superconductivity in TBG systems in case of both the assumed interaction schemes.
Exotic Fulde-Ferrell (FF) superfluid phases, characterized by the non-zero momentum of Cooper pairs, were explored in Publication II. We show how the FF phases can be stabilized against thermal fluctuations in the presence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and that topologically non-trivial FF states, created with SOC and Zeeman fields, can be found at finite temperatures.; Tassa…
We consider the superconducting properties of Lieb lattice, which produces a flat-band energy spectrum in the normal state under the strong electron–electron correlation. Firstly, we show the hole-doping dependent superconducting order amplitude with various electron–electron interaction strengths in the zero-temperature limit. Secondly, we obtain the superfluid weight and Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) transition temperature with a lightly doping level. The large ratio between the gap-opening temperature and BKT transition temperature shows similar behavior to the pseudogap state in high-T c superconductors. The BKT transition temperature versus doping level exhibits a dome-like shape in resemblance to the superconducting dome observed in the high-T c superconductors. However, unlike the exponential dependence of T c on the electron–electron interaction strength in the conventional high-T c superconductors, the BKT transition temperature for a flat band system depends linearly on the electron–electron interaction strength. We also show the doping-dependent superconductivity on a lattice with the staggered hoping parameter in the end. Our predictions are amenable to verification in the ultracold atoms experiment and promote the understanding of the anomalous behavior of the superfluid weight in the high-T c superconductors.
Flat-band systems such as magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene host strong-correlation superconductivity at vanishingly weak coupling, yet how quantum geometry and pairing fluctuations conspire to drive this phenomenon remains an open question. We investigate finite-temperature superfluidity in a quasi-two-dimensional Lieb lattice using a pairing fluctuation theory with a band-uniform attractive interaction g<0 that isolates the intrinsic quantum geometric contributions. Quantum geometry significantly amplifies superfluidity; the geometric pair hopping integral surpasses its conventional counterpart, and the geometric superfluid density becomes the dominant in-plane transport component. When the Fermi level enters the flat band, the BCS paradigm breaks down entirely; the pairing gap and Tc shift from exponential to anomalous power-law scaling Δ,Tc∝∣g∣ν (ν>1), and the superfluid density inherits an unconventional power-law temperature dependence at low temperatures. In the 2D limit (tz=0), the pseudogap at Tc nearly saturates the zero-temperature gap even at ∣g∣/t=0.001, placing the system in a strong-pseudogap regime that would otherwise require unitary or BEC-scale interactions. These findings establish a microscopic mechanism for flat-band enhanced superfluidity and offer testable predictions for ultracold atom experiments.
In flat-band systems with quenched kinetic energy, most of the conventional length scales related to the band dispersion become ineffectual. Although a few geometric length scales, such as the quantum metric length, can still be defined, because of their embedding dependence, i.e., the dependence on the choice of orbital positions used to construct the tight-binding model, they cannot serve as a universal length scale of the flat-band systems. Here, we introduce an embedding independent length scale ξflat of a flat band that is defined as the localization length of an in-gap state proximate to the flat band. Because ξflat is derived from the intrinsic localization of compact localized states, it is solely determined by the Hamiltonian and provides a robust foundation for embedding independent observables. We show analytically that the superconducting coherence length in a flat-band superconductor is given by ξflat in the weak-coupling limit, thereby identifying ξflat as the relevant length scale for many-body phenomena. Numerical simulations on various lattice models confirm all theoretical predictions, including the correspondence between ξflat and the superconducting coherence length. Our results highlight ξflat as a universal length scale for flat bands and open a pathway to embedding independent characterization of interacting flat-band materials.