Superconducting dome driven by intervalley phonon scattering in monolayer MoS2

Abstract

We combine first-principles calculations, a three-band tight-binding model, and Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory to explore the physical mechanism for a dome-shaped dependence of superconducting transition temperature of monolayer MoS2 on electron doping concentration, which has been observed experimentally (2012 Science 338 1193). We find that in the process of doping more electrons contribute to superconducting pairing, but above some doping value the effective attractive interaction decreases so greatly that it starts to reduce the pairing strength, forming a superconducting dome. Therefore, the dome behavior can be attributed to the competition between the growing Fermi pocket (corresponding to an increase of the number of intervalley phonon scatterings) and the screened intervalley phonon scattering (corresponding to a decrease of scattering probability).