Superconductivity on a Charge Diet

Abstract

The origin of superconductivity in bulk SrTiO 3 is a mystery since the nonmonotonous variation of the critical transition with carrier concentration defies the expectations of the crudest version of the BCS theory. Here, employing the Nernst effect, an extremely sensitive probe of tiny bulk Fermi surfaces, we show that, down to concentrations as low as 5:5 Â 10 17 cm À3 , the system has both a sharp Fermi surface and a superconducting ground state. The most dilute superconductor currently known therefore has a metallic normal state with a Fermi energy as little as 1.1 meV on top of a band gap as large as 3 eV. The occurrence of a superconducting instability in an extremely small, single-component, and barely anisotropic Fermi surface implies strong constraints for the identification of the pairing mechanism.