Vanadium-Based Superconductivity in a Breathing Kagome Compound Ta2V3.1Si0.9

Abstract

Superconductivity in V-based kagome metals has recently raised great interest as they exhibit the competing ground states associated with the flat bands and topological electronic structures. Here we report the discovery of superconductivity in Ta2V3.1Si0.9 with a superconducting transition temperature Tc of 7.5 K, much higher than those in previously reported kagome metals at ambient pressure. While the V ions form a two-dimensional breathing kagome structure, the length difference between two different V-V bonds is just 0.04, making it very close to the perfect kagome structure. Our results show that Ta2V3.1Si0.9 is a moderate-coupled superconductor with a large upper critical field that is close to the Pauli limit. DFT calculations give a van-Hove-singularity band located at Fermi energy, which may explain the relatively high Tc observed in this material.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure