Substrate enhanced superconductivity in Li-decorated graphene

Abstract

We investigate the role of the substrate for the strength of the electon phonon coupling in Li-decorated graphene. We find that the interaction with a $h$-BN substrate leads to a significant enhancement from $\lambda_0=0.62$ to $\lambda_1=0.67$, which corresponds to a $25\%$ increase of the transition temperature from $T_{c0}=10.33$ K to $T_{c1}=12.98$ K. The superconducting gaps amount to 1.56 meV (suspended) and 1.98 meV (supported). These findings open up a new route to enhanced superconducting transition temperatures in graphene-based materials by substrate engineering.