First-principles calculation of electron-phonon coupling in doped KTaO$_3$

Abstract

Motivated by the recent experimental discovery of strongly surface-plane-dependent superconductivity at surfaces of KTaO$_3$ single crystals, we calculate the electron-phonon coupling strength, $\lambda$, of doped KTaO$_3$ along the reciprocal-space high-symmetry directions. Using the Wannier-function approach implemented in the EPW package, we calculate $\lambda$ across the experimentally covered doping range and compare its mode-resolved distribution along the [001], [110] and [111] reciprocal-space directions. We find that the electron-phonon coupling is strongest in the optical modes around the $\Gamma$ point, with some distribution to higher $k$ values in the [001] direction. The electron-phonon coupling strength as a function of doping has a dome-like shape in all three directions and its integrated total is largest in the [001] direction and smallest in the [111] direction, in contrast to the experimentally measured trends in critical temperatures. This disagreement points to a non-BCS character of the superconductivity. Instead, the strong localization of $\lambda$ in the soft optical modes around $\Gamma$ suggests an importance of ferroelectric soft-mode fluctuations, which is supported by our findings that the mode-resolved $\lambda$ values are strongly enhanced in polar structures. The inclusion of spin-orbit coupling has negligible influence on our calculated mode-resolved $\lambda$ values.