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    Bilayer Borophenes Establish a New Upper Limit for Elemental Superconducting Transition Temperatures

    Meng-hui Wang1, Yuewen Mu2, Guang-ren Na1, Hao-lin Song1, and Zhong-hua Cui1,*

    • *Contact author: zcui@jlu.edu.cn

    Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 066001 – Published 4 August, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8l19-rdn2

    Abstract

    Elemental superconductors serve as essential model systems because their compositional simplicity enables fundamental mechanisms to be probed with minimal extrinsic complexity. Their superconducting transition temperatures (Tc), however, are generally low, with the notable exception of scandium, which reaches 36 K at 260 GPa—the highest Tc reported for any elemental material. Although bulk boron is semiconducting at ambient pressure, two-dimensional boron monolayers (borophenes) exhibit rich structural polymorphism, and several phases are predicted to be superconducting with Tc values of 3.7–27.6 K, limited by relatively weak electron-phonon coupling. Here, we show that borophene bilayers, stabilized by interlayer B-B bonds, unexpectedly enhance the electronic density of states near the Fermi level and promote cooperative electron-phonon interactions, in which px,y states couple to in-plane phonons and pz states to out-of-plane modes. A high-throughput search of more than 9000 bilayer configurations identifies an AA-stacked, low-energy v1/7 structure with Tc≈68  K, setting a new record for elemental superconductivity.

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