Screening of pair fluctuations in superconductors with coupled shallow and deep bands: A route to higher-temperature superconductivity

Abstract

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 inter-band coupling is very small. Thus, a multi-band 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.