Abstract
Monolayer FeSe films grown on SrTiO3 (STO) substrate show superconducting gap-opening temperatures (\(T_{\mathrm{c}}\)) which are almost an order of magnitude higher than those of the bulk FeSe and are highest among all known Fe-based superconductors. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy observed “replica bands” suggesting the importance of the interaction between FeSe electrons and STO phonons. These facts rejuvenated the quest for \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) enhancement mechanisms in iron-based, especially iron-chalcogenide, superconductors. Here, we perform the first numerically-exact sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo simulations to iron-based superconductors. We (1) study the electronic pairing mechanism intrinsic to heavily electron doped FeSe films, and (2) examine the effects of electron–phonon interaction between FeSe and STO as well as nematic fluctuations on \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\). Armed with these results, we return to the question “what makes the \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) of monolayer FeSe on SrTiO3 so high?” in the conclusion and discussions.
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
1 Introduction
The strong Cooper pairing in monolayer FeSe film on SrTiO3 substrate \(\hbox {((FeSe)}_1/\hbox {STO})\) [1] continues to attract a great deal of attentions (e.g. Refs. [2–17]). Recent developments in the study of FeSe-based high temperature superconductors clearly indicate there are at least two factors that are important to the enhancement of \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) from 8.9 K (bulk FeSe) to about 75 K in \(\hbox {FeSe/BaTiO}_3/\hbox {SrTiO}_3\) [5]. These factors are (1) heavy electron doping [9–14] and (2) the effects of the substrate [15, 16].
The first factor, namely heavy electron doping, shapes the fermiology into that best for the intrinsic electron pairing mechanism to act [17]. Concerning the intrinsic pairing mechanism there are two main candidates: the spin [18–23] and orbital [24] fluctuations mediated pairing. However, these proposals are based on approximations that are often not controlled in the presence of strong correlations. By now there are mounting experimental [25–27] and theoretical [28–30] evidences that iron-based superconductors, in particular the iron-chalcogenide superconductors, are strongly correlated. Thus, a theoretical method free of uncontrolled approximations suitable for handling such situation is in high demand.
An experiment that sheds lots of light on the second factor, i.e., the effects of substrate, is the ARPES result of Ref. [15], which shows “replica bands” approximately 100 meV away from all low binding energy bands. Such phenomenon is explained in terms of “phonon shake off”, and the phonons are identified with the longitudinal optical phonon branch of STO [15, 16]. This result suggests there is a strong coupling between the FeSe electrons and STO phonons. Moreover, it is conjectured that such coupling can substantially enhance the \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) intrinsic to heavily electron doped FeSe [15, 16].
In the rest of the paper, we perform large-scale projector quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) [31–33] simulation (details are discussed in Ref. [34]). It turns out that the fermiology, namely the existence of two separate electron Fermi pockets, of \(\hbox {(FeSe)}_1/\hbox {STO}\) allows the simulation to be free of the fermion minus sign problem. This enables us to perform approximation-free unbiased study of the intrinsic electronic pairing mechanisms, namely, the antiferromagnetic (AFM) and antiferro-orbital (AFO) fluctuation mediated pairing. It also allows us to study the effects of electron–phonon interaction between FeSe and STO [16] and nematic fluctuations [35, 36] on \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\).
A summary of our results is as follows. For the intrinsic pairing mechanisms we have studied two types of spin fluctuations and one type of orbital fluctuations. A commonality between these fluctuations is that they all scatter electrons from one Fermi pocket to the other. (1) For spin fluctuations mimicking the nearest-neighbor AFM exchange interaction (the “\(J_1\)-type” spin fluctuation) the ground state exhibits nodeless d-wave superconducting (SC) long range order. (2) For spin fluctuations mimicking the next-nearest-neighbor AFM exchange interaction (the “\(J_2\)-type”spin fluctuation) the ground state exhibits s-wave SC long range order. (3) The AFO fluctuations trigger s-wave pairing. For the enhancement mechanisms we have studied the small momentum transfer electron–phonon interactions and the nematic fluctuations. Our results clearly show (4) the small momentum transfer electron–phonon interaction significantly strengthens the Cooper pairing triggered by both spin and orbital fluctuations. (5) Similar to the electron–phonon interaction nematic fluctuations also strengthen the Cooper pairing triggered by all three intrinsic mechanisms discussed above. A highlight of some of the main results is shown in Fig. 1.
2 Sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo
The effective actions we consider are given in the Electronic Supplementary Materials I–IV (online). These actions consist of three parts: (1) the bandstructure of electrons, (2) various fluctuating Bose fields, and (3) the “Yukawa” coupling between the Bose fields and electrons. The bandstructure is chosen to mimic the Fermi surfaces of \(\hbox {(FeSe)}_1/\hbox {STO}\) as shown in Fig. 1a. We use the one-iron Brillouin zone because it has been shown experimentally that when folded to the corners of the two-iron Brillouin zone the electron pockets show negligible hybridization at their crossings [37].
For intrinsic pairing mechanisms the Bose fields we studied include \({\vec {\varphi }}_{\mathrm{s}}\) and \(\varphi _{\mathrm{o}}\) associated with the spin and orbital fluctuations respectively. These fields scatter electrons between the Fermi pockets as shown by the green arrow in Fig. 1a. For the pairing enhancement mechanisms, we studied STO phonons and nematic fluctuations. The Bose fields associated with them are \(\varphi _{\mathrm{ph}}\) and \(\varphi _{\mathrm{n}}\), they cause small momentum transfer (i.e. intra-pocket) scattering of the FeSe electrons. The reason we only consider small momentum phonon scattering is due to the forward-focusing nature of the electron–phonon interaction deduced from Ref. [15]. In Eqs. (S2), (S5) and (S9) (online), the parameters \(r_{\mathrm{s,o,n}}\) tune \(\vec {\varphi }_{\mathrm{s}}\), \(\varphi _{\mathrm{o}}\), \(\varphi _{\mathrm{n}}\) across their respective quantum phase transitions. Large negative values correspond to strongly ordered phase and large positive values correspond to the strongly disordered phase. The parameter \(r_{\mathrm{ph}}\) in Eq. (S7) (online) controls the optical phonon frequency at \(\vec {q}=0\). Remarkably, in all cases our QMC calculation has no minus sign problem [38–40] (see the Electronic Supplementary Material VI online). The QMC simulation is carried out on a square lattice with \(N=L\times L\) sites using periodic boundary conditions. In the following we present the simulation results.
3 The spin fluctuation mediated pairing
3.1 The J 1-type spin fluctuation
The effective action is given by Eqs. (S1)–(S3) (online). The reason we refer to it as the \(J_1\)-type spin fluctuation is because integrating out \(\vec {\varphi }_{\mathrm{s}}\) generates an AFM exchange interaction whose momentum space coupling constant has the same sign has that of the nearest-neighbor (\(J_1\)) AFM exchange interaction. From the Binder cumulant [41] of the AFM order parameter (not shown), we estimate the AFM quantum critical point \(r_{\mathrm{s,c}}\) to lie in the range of (0, 0.25). To study superconductivity we compute the equal-time pair–pair correlation function \({\overline{P}}_{s/d}({\vec {x}}_{\mathrm{max}})\) (see Eqs. (S11)–(S13) online). Here s/d denotes s-wave (same sign on the two electron pockets) and (nodeless) d-wave (opposite sign on the two electron pockets) pairing, respectively. \(\vec x_{\text {max}}=(L/2,L/2)\) is the maximum separation between the two pair fields in a system of size L. In Fig. 1b, we plot \({\overline{P}}_{s/d}(L/2,L/2)\) for \(L=18\) as a function of \(r_{\mathrm{s}}\). Clearly superconductivity is enhanced near the magnetic quantum critical point. Moreover, the d-wave pairing is favored over the s-wave [42].
In Fig. 2a (red curve), we show the size-dependence of \({\overline{P}}_{d}(L/2,L/2)\) at \(r_{\mathrm{s}}=0.25\) for \(L = 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22\) (the red points). The red curve is the best fit using a second order polynomial in 1/L. This allows us to extrapolate to \(L\rightarrow \infty \) to obtain \({\overline{P}}_{d}(L \rightarrow \infty ) = (4.3 \pm 1.1) \times 10^{-4}\). This establishes the fact that the ground state possesses nodeless d-wave SC long-range order!
3.2 The J 2-type spin fluctuation
The effective action is given by Eqs. (S1), (S2) and (S4) (online). In this case, integrating out the spin boson \({\vec {\varphi }}_{\mathrm{s}}\) generates an AFM exchange interaction whose momentum space coupling constant has the same sign has that of the next nearest neighbor (\(J_2\)) AFM exchange interaction. From the Binder cumulant (not shown here) we deduce the quantum critical point to be situated within \( 0.0 \le r_{\mathrm{s,c}}\le 0.25\). In Fig. 3a, we plot \({\overline{P}}_{s/d}(L/2,L/2)\) for \(L=14\) as a function of \(r_{\mathrm{s}}\). Here s-wave superconductivity is enhanced near the magnetic quantum critical point.
In Fig. 2b (red curve), we study the size-dependence of \({\overline{P}}_{d}(L/2,L/2)\) at \(r_{\mathrm{s}}=0.25\) for \(L = 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22\) (the red points). The red curve is the best fit using a second order polynomial in 1/L. This allows us to extrapolate to \(L\rightarrow \infty \) to obtain \({\overline{P}}_{d}(L \rightarrow \infty ) = (1.4\pm 0.5)\times 10^{-4}\). This establishes the fact that the ground state possesses nodeless s-wave SC long-range order.
4 The AFO fluctuation mediated pairing
In this section, we study the effects of AFO fluctuation (\(\varphi _{\text{o}}\)) on superconductivity. The effective action is given by Eqs. (S1), (S5) and (S6) (online). Like the AFM fields the AFO field also scatters electrons between the two Fermi pockets (the green arrow in Fig. 1a).
From the Binder cumulant associated with the AFO order parameter (not shown here) we deduce the AFO quantum critical point to be situated within \( 0.0 \le r_{{\mathrm{o,c}}}\le 0.25\). In Fig. 3b, we plot \({\overline{P}}_{s/d}(L/2,L/2)\) for \(L=14\) as a function of \(r_{\mathrm{o}}\). Clearly s-wave SC correlation is favored over the d-wave, and it is peaked near the AFO quantum critical point. In Fig. 2c (red curve) we study the size-dependence of \({\overline{P}}_{d}(L/2,L/2)\) at \(r_{\mathrm{o}}=0.25\) for \(L = 12, 14, 16,18,20,22\) (the red points). The red curve is the best fit using a second order polynomial in 1/L. This allows us to extrapolate to \(L\rightarrow \infty \) to obtain \({\overline{P}}_{s}(L \rightarrow \infty ) = (2.1 \pm 0.9)\times 10^{-4}\). This indicates that the ground state possesses s-wave SC long-range order.
5 The pairing enhancement due to STO phonons
Motivated by Ref. [15], here we study the effect of small momentum transfer electron–phonon coupling on the superconductivity triggered by pure AFM and AFO fluctuations. This is done by adding the coupling to \(\varphi _{\mathrm{ph}}\) [see Eqs. (S7), (S8) online]. The parameter \(r_{\mathrm{ph}}\) that controls the phonon frequency is fixed at 0.5. The strength of the electron–phonon coupling is controlled by \(\lambda _{\mathrm{ph}}\). The value of \(\lambda _{\mathrm{ph}}\) is chosen so that the dimensionless strength of the phonon mediated attraction \(\lambda = \frac{\lambda _{\mathrm{ph}}^2}{r_{\mathrm{ph}} W}=0.6\). Here W is the electron band width. This value is similar to the estimate given in Ref. [15]. In the following we fix the parameter \(r_{\mathrm{s,o}}\) at 0.25. In Fig. 2 we compare the size dependence of the SC correlation function in the dominant pairing channels with (black curve) and without (red curve) phonons. Clearly the SC order is enhanced by the electron–phonon interaction regardless of the intrinsic pairing mechanisms.
The phase diagram in Fig. 1c is constructed from the extrapolated value of the AFM and SC order parameters from finite-size analysis for each \(r_{\mathrm{s}}\). The plot is for the \(J_1\)-type spin fluctuation, however we expect a similar plot holds for \(J_2\)-type spin and AFO fluctuations as well. In the phase diagram, we use the ground state expectation value of the AFM and SC order parameters as a measure of their ordering temperatures. It is clear that the SC ordering temperature \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) is enhanced by the electron–phonon couplings for all value of \(r_{\mathrm{s}}\). Remarkably, the \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) enhancement by phonons is largest around the AFM quantum critical point.
In the Electronic Supplementary Material VII (online), we study the enhancement of the SC order parameter due to \(J_1\)-type spin and AFO fluctuations as a function of the dimensionless phonon-mediated attraction strength \(\lambda \). Apparently, the enhancement of superconductivity peaks at \(\lambda =1.5\) for the \(J_1\)-type spin fluctuation triggered d-wave pairing. For the AFO induced s-wave pairing the pair–pair correlation increases monotonously with the electron–phonon coupling strength up to \(\lambda =2.2.\)
6 The pairing enhancement by nematic fluctuations
In view of the possibility that nematic fluctuation can be substantial in heavily electron-doped FeSe films [17], here we study the effects of nematic fluctuations on superconductivity. The effective action is given by Eqs. (S1), (S9) and (S10) (online).
In Fig. 4, we compare the size dependence of the SC correlation function in the dominant pairing channels with (black curve) and without (red curve) nematic fluctuations. Like the electron–phonon interaction, the SC order is enhanced by the nematic fluctuations for all intrinsic pairing mechanisms considered.
7 Conclusion and discussions
A definitive answer to “why \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) is so high in monolayer FeSe on \(\hbox {SrTiO}_3\)?” requires one to (1) determine the intrinsic pairing mechanisms which is primarily responsible to Cooper pairing in heavily electron doped FeSe-based high temperature superconductors, and (2) pin down the effects of substrate.
Regarding (2), our results show that small momentum transfer electron–phonon scattering enhances superconductivity regardless of whether it is triggered by the spin or orbital fluctuations, hence lend support to the phonon enhancement mechanism discussed in Refs. [15, 16]. However our result holds for all phonons that scatter the FeSe electron with small momentum transfer. It does not allow us to conclude that the particular branch of high frequency phonon which caused the replica bands in Ref. [15] is solely responsible for the \(T_{{\mathrm{c}}}\) enhancement. In particular it does not rule out the importance of other lower frequency polar phonons.
Regarding (1), our results do not allow us to answer whether spin or orbital fluctuation is main intrinsic pairing mechanism in heavily electron doped FeSe films. However we can confidently predict the pairing symmetry associated with each pairing mechanism. In particular if the pairing symmetry turns out to be s-wave it can come from several different mechanisms: \(J_2\)-type spin fluctuation or anti-ferro orbital fluctuation, or the combination of them with nematic fluctuation. However if the pairing symmetry is d-wave our result uniquely pins down the \(J_1\)-type spin fluctuation as the driving force.
Experimentally the pairing symmetry of \(\hbox {(FeSe)}_1/\hbox {STO}\) is still an open question. However we would like to list a number of circumstantial evidence that the pairing symmetry might be d-wave. The first is the existence of neutron resonance below twice the SC gap in materials with similar fermiology [43, 44], and the fact that the momentum locations of the resonance are consistent with inter-pocket scattering. The second is a recent high resolution ARPES study of the SC gap anisotropy of \(\hbox {(FeSe)}_1/\hbox {STO}\) [37]. It observes four minima in the SC gap at the momentum locations corresponding to the crossing of the two Fermi pockets (in the two iron Brillouin zone). This can be interpreted as the result due to weak inter-pocket hybridization on a nodeless d-wave gap [45]. Moreover the weakness of the inter-pocket hybridization is evidenced by the lack of splitting at the Fermi pocket crossings in the normal state.
Although there is no direct evidence of strong nematic fluctuation in \(\hbox {(FeSe)}_1/\hbox {STO}\) we can not rule out that it does play a partial role in the pairing of heavily electron doped FeSe films. By itself nematic fluctuation will not discriminate between s- and d-wave pairings. However when coupled with the spin or orbital fluctuations it can significantly enhance the pairing strength favored by each of them.
References
Wang QY, Li Z, Zhang WH et al (2012) Interface-induced high-temperature superconductivity in single unit-cell FeSe films on SrTiO3. Chin Phys Lett 29:037402
Liu DF, Zhang WH, Mou DX et al (2012) Electronic origin of high-temperature superconductivity in single-layer FeSe superconductor. Nat Commun 3:931
Tan S, Zhang Y, Xia M et al (2013) Interface-induced superconductivity and strain-dependent spin density waves in FeSe/SrTiO3 thin films. Nat Mater 12:634–640
He SL, He JF, Zhang WH et al (2013) Phase diagram and electronic indication of high-temperature superconductivity at 65 K in single-layer FeSe films. Nat Mater 12:605–610
Peng R, Xu HC, Tan SY et al (2014) Tuning the band structure and superconductivity in single-layer FeSe by interface engineering. Nat Commun 5:5044
Ge JF, Liu ZL, Liu C et al (2015) Superconductivity above 100 K in single-layer FeSe films on doped SrTiO3. Nat Mater 14:285
Zhang Z, Wang YH, Song Q et al (2015) Onset of the Meissner effect at 65 K in FeSe thin film grown on Nb-doped SrTiO3 substrate. Sci Bull 60:1301–1304
Tang C, Zhang D, Zang Y et al (2015) Superconductivity dichotomy in K-coated single and double unit cell FeSe films on SrTiO3. Phys Rev B 92:180507
Lu XF, Wang NZ, Wu H et al (2015) Coexistence of superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe. Nat Mater 14:325–329
Zhao L, Liang AJ, Yuan DN et al (2016) Common electronic origin of superconductivity in (Li, Fe)OHFeSe bulk superconductor and single-layer FeSe/FeSe/SrTiO3 Films. Nat Commun 7:10608
Niu XH, Peng R, Xu HC et al (2015) Surface electronic structure and isotropic superconducting gap in (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe. Phys Rev B 92:060504
Miyata Y, Nakayama K, Sugawara K et al (2015) High-temperature superconductivity in potassium-coated multilayer FeSe thin films. Nat Mater 14:775–779
Wen CHP, Xu HC, Chen C et al (2016) Anomalous correlation effects and unique phase diagram of electron doped FeSe revealed by angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Nat Commun 7:10840
Tang C, Liu C, Zhou G et al (2016) Interface enhanced electron–phonon coupling and high temperature superconductivity in potassium-coated ultra-thin FeSe films on SrTiO3. Phys Rev B 93:020507
Lee JJ, Schmitt FT, Moore RG et al (2014) Interfacial mode coupling as the origin of the enhancement of \(T_{{{\rm c}}}\) in FeSe films on SrTiO3. Nature 515:245–248
Lee DH (2015) What makes the \(T_{{{\rm c}}}\) of FeSe/SrTiO3 so high? Chin Phys B 24:117405
Ye ZR, Zhang CF, Ning HL et al (2015) Simultaneous emergence of superconductivity, inter-pocket scattering and nematic fluctuation in potassium-coated FeSe superconductor. arXiv:1512.02526
Mazin II, Singh DJ, Johannes MD et al (2008) Unconventional superconductivity with a sign reversal in the order parameter of LaFeAsO1−x F x . Phys Rev Lett 101:057003
Kuroki K, Onari S, Arita R et al (2008) Unconventional pairing originating from the disconnected Fermi surfaces of superconducting LaFeAsO1−x F x . Phys Rev Lett 101:087004
Chubukov AV, Efremov DV, Eremin I (2008) Magnetism, superconductivity, and pairing symmetry in iron-based superconductors. Phys Rev B 78:134512
Seo K, Bernevig BA, Hu J (2008) Pairing symmetry in a two-orbital exchange coupling model of oxypnictides. Phys Rev Lett 101:206404
Wang F, Zhai H, Ran Y et al (2009) Functional renormalization-group study of the pairing symmetry and pairing mechanism of the FeAs-based high-temperature superconductor. Phys Rev Lett 102:047005
Graser S, Maier TA, Hirschfeld PJ et al (2009) Near-degeneracy of several pairing channels in multiorbital models for the Fe-pnictides. New J Phys 11:025016
Kontani H, Onari S (2010) Orbital-fluctuation-mediated superconductivity in iron pnictides: analysis of the five-orbital Hubbard–Holstein model. Phys Rev Lett 104:157001
Qazilbash MM, Hamlin JJ, Baumbach RE et al (2009) Electronic correlations in the iron pnictides. Nat Phys 5:647–650
Tamai A, Ganin AY, Rozbicki E et al (2010) Strong electron correlations in the normal Sstate of the iron-based FeSe0.42Te0.58 superconductor observed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Phys Rev Lett 104:097002
Yi M, Liu ZK, Zhang Y et al (2015) Observation of universal strong orbital-dependent correlation effects in iron chalcogenides. Nat Commun 6:7777
Si Q, Abrahams E, Dai J et al (2009) Correlation effects in the iron pnictides. New J Phys 11:045001
Yin ZP, Haule K, Kotliar G (2011) Kinetic frustration and the nature of the magnetic and paramagnetic states in iron pnictides and iron chalcogenides. Nat Mater 10:932
Georges A, de’Medici L, Mravlje J (2013) Strong correlations from Hund’s coupling. Annu Rev Condens Matter Phys 4:137
Sorella S, Baroni S, Car R et al (1989) A novel technique for the simulation of interacting fermion systems. Europhys Lett 8:663
White SR, Scalapino DJ, Sugar RL et al (1989) Numerical study of the two-dimensional Hubbard model. Phys Rev B 40:506
Assaad FF, Evertz HG (2008) World-line and determinantal quantum Monte Carlo methods for spins, phonons and electrons. In: Fehske H, Schneider R, Weiße A (eds) Computational many-prticle physics. Lecture notes in physics, pp 277–356
Li ZX, Wang F, Yao H et al (2015) The nature of effective interaction in cuprate superconductors: a sign-problem-free quantum Monte-Carlo study. arXiv:1512.04541
Lederer S, Schattner Y, Berg E et al (2015) Enhancement of superconductivity near a nematic quantum critical point. Phys Rev Lett 114:097001
Schattner Y, Lederer S, Kivelson SA et al (2015) Ising nematic quantum critical point in a metal: a Monte Carlo study. arXiv:1511.03282
Zhang Y, Lee JJ, Moore RG et al (2015) Superconducting gap anisotropy in monolayer FeSe thin film. arXiv:1512.06322
Wu C, Zhang SC (2005) Sufficient condition for absence of the sign problem in the fermionic quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. Phys Rev B 71:155115
Berg E, Metlitski MA, Sachdev S (2012) Sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo of the onset of antiferromagnetism in metals. Science 338:1606
Li ZX, Jiang YF, Yao H (2015) Solving the fermion sign problem in quantum Monte Carlo simulations by Majorana representation. Phys Rev B 91:241117
Binder K (1981) Finite size scaling analysis of Ising model block distribution functions. Z Phys B Condens Matter 43:119–140
Davis JCS, Lee DH (2013) Concepts relating magnetic interactions, intertwined electronic orders, and strongly correlated superconductivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:17623–17630
Park JT, Friemel G, Li Y et al (2011) Magnetic resonant mode in the low-energy spin-excitation spectrum of superconducting Rb2Fe4Se5 single crystals. Phys Rev Lett 107:177005
Friemel G, Liu WP, Goremychkin EA et al (2012) Conformity of spin fluctuations in alkali-metal iron selenide superconductors inferred from the observation of a magnetic resonant mode in K x Fe2−x Se2. Europhys Lett 99:67004
Mazin II (2011) Symmetry analysis of possible superconducting states in K x Fe y Se2 superconductors. Phys Rev B 84:024529
Dumitrescu PT, Serbyn M, Scalettar RT et al (2015) Superconductivity and nematic fluctuations in a model of FeSe monolayers: a determinant quantum Monte Carlo study. arXiv:1512.08523
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou for computational support. ZXL and HY were supported in part by the National Thousand Young-Talents Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11474175). FW was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11374018). DHL was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, Grant DE-AC02-05CH11231.
Note
After our work was posted on arXiv.org, another sign-problem-free QMC on FeSe appeared [46]. However, the focus of Ref. [46] is quite different from ours.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
This article is published under an open access license. Please check the 'Copyright Information' section either on this page or in the PDF for details of this license and what re-use is permitted. If your intended use exceeds what is permitted by the license or if you are unable to locate the licence and re-use information, please contact the Rights and Permissions team.
About this article
Cite this article
Li, ZX., Wang, F., Yao, H. et al. What makes the T c of monolayer FeSe on SrTiO3 so high: a sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo study. Sci. Bull. 61, 925–930 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-016-1087-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-016-1087-x