Coexistence of Superconductivity and Nontrivial Band Topology in Monolayered Cobalt Pnictides on SrTiO3.

Abstract

As an intrinsically layered material, FeSe has been extensively explored for potentially revealing the underlying mechanisms of high transition temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity and realizing topological superconductivity and Majorana zero modes. Here we use first-principles approaches to identify that the cobalt pnictides of CoX (X = As, Sb, Bi), none of which is a layered material in bulk form. Nevertheless, all can be stabilized as monolayered systems either in freestanding form or supported on the SrTiO3(001) substrate. We further show that each of the cobalt pnictides may potentially harbor high-Tc superconductivity beyond the Cu- and Fe-based superconducting families, and the underlying mechanism is inherently tied to their isovalency nature with the FeSe monolayer. Most strikingly, each of the monolayered CoX's on SrTiO3 is shown to be topologically nontrivial, and our findings provide promising new platforms for realizing topological superconductors in the two-dimensional limit.