Electron-phonon interaction in Graphite Intercalation Compounds

Abstract

Motivated by the recent discovery of superconductivity in Ca- and Yb-intercalated graphite (CaC${}_6$ and YbC${}_6$) and from the ongoing debate on the nature and role of the interlayer state in this class of compounds, in this work we critically study the electron-phonon properties of a simple model based on primitive graphite. We show that this model captures an essential feature of the electron-phonon properties of the Graphite Intercalation Compounds (GICs), namely, the existence of a strong dormant electron-phonon interaction between interlayer and ${\pi }^{\ast }$ electrons, for which we provide a simple geometrical explanation in terms of NMTO Wannier-like functions. Our findings correct the oversimplified view that nearly-free-electron states cannot interact with the surrounding lattice, and explain the empirical correlation between the filling of the interlayer band and the occurrence of superconductivity in Graphite-Intercalation Compounds.

13 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B

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• Anisotropic Electron-Phonon Coupling and Dynamical Nesting on the Graphene Sheets in CaC6
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• Electronic structure of heavily-doped graphene: the role of foreign atom states
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• Vibrational spectrum and electron-phonon coupling of doped solid picene from first principles
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• Neutron scattering study of the high energy graphitic phonons in superconducting CaC${}_6$
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• Stability-superconductivity map for compressed Na-intercalated graphite
• Wannier-Orbital theory and ARPES for the quasi-1D conductor LiMo${}_6$O${}_{17}$