Polaronic behavior in a weak coupling superconductor

Abstract

The nature of superconductivity in the dilute semiconductor SrTiO$_3$ has remained an open question for more than 50 years. The extremely low carrier densities ($10^{18}$ - $10^{20}$ cm$^{-3}$) at which superconductivity occurs suggests an unconventional origin of superconductivity outside of the adiabatic limit on which the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) and Migdal-Eliashberg (ME) theories are based. We take advantage of a newly developed method for engineering band alignments at oxide interfaces and access the electronic structure of Nb-doped SrTiO$_3$ using high resolution tunneling spectroscopy. We observe strong coupling to the highest energy longitudinal optic (LO) phonon branch and estimate the doping evolution of the dimensionless electron-phonon interaction strength ($\lambda$). Upon cooling below the superconducting transition temperature ($T_{\mathrm{c}}$), we observe a single superconducting gap corresponding to the weak-coupling limit of BCS theory, indicating an order of magnitude smaller coupling ($\lambda_{\textrm{BCS}} \approx 0.1$). These results suggest that despite the strong normal state interaction with electrons, the highest LO phonon does not provide a dominant contribution to pairing. They further demonstrate that SrTiO$_3$ is an ideal system to probe superconductivity over a wide range of carrier density, adiabatic parameter, and electron-phonon coupling strength.