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Strongly Correlated Ladders in K-Doped p-Terphenyl Crystals
John Sous1, Natalia A Gadjieva2, Colin Nuckolls2
1Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, United States.
Abstract:
Potassium-doped terphenyl has recently attracted attention as a potential host for high-transition-temperature superconductivity. Here, we elucidate the many-body electronic structure of recently synthesized potassium-doped terphenyl crystals. We show that this system may be understood as a set of weakly coupled one-dimensional ladders. Depending on the strength of the interladder coupling, the system may exhibit insulating spin-gapped valence-bond solid or antiferromagnetic phases, both of which upon hole doping may give rise to superconductivity. This terphenyl-based ladder material serves as a new platform for investigating the fate of ladder phases in the presence of three-dimensional coupling as well as for novel superconductivity.
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