Electron correlations in superconducting trilayer nickelates

The discovery of superconductivity in multilayer nickelates is of great current interest to the field of quantum materials in general and superconductivity in particular. The trilayer nickelate La₄Ni₃O₁₀ exhibits superconducting transition temperature up to 30 K with a volume fraction of 80% [1,2] and a correlated metallic normal state hosting electronic orders [3–6]. Understanding the electron correlation effects of the metallic state in La₄Ni₃O₁₀ provides insights into the nature of both normal state and superconductivity. In this work, we theoretically study a multi-orbital Hubbard model for La₄Ni₃O₁₀, and show that its electronic structure in the normal state exhibits layer- and orbital-selective electronic correlations. The broad implications of our study for the understanding of the new family of high temperature nickelate superconductors are discussed.

Funding acknowledgement: Supported by the Carl and Lillian Illig Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Smalley-Curl Institute at Rice University (K.-S. L.) and the DOE Award No. DE-SC0018197.

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