- Accepted Paper
Optical conductivity signatures of strong correlations and multiband superconductivity in infinite-layer nickelates
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 20 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6mmg-k9yp
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 20 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6mmg-k9yp
Since the discovery of superconductivity in infinite-layer nickelates, there have been extensive efforts to unravel their electronic structure and pairing mechanism. In particular, understanding how the electronic structure evolves with doping is essential for clarifying theoretical models of superconductivity in nickelates. Here we present studies of the optical conductivity of Nd1-xSrxNiO2 thin films spanning the full phase diagram 0.025 < x < 0.30 using spectroscopic ellipsometry. The data are consistent with a two-band Drude model, which allows the decomposition of the intraband response into distinct contributions. One is from a ‘narrow’ Drude term which we associate with electron bands, and the other a ‘broad’ Drude term linked to the hole band with strong correlations. Increasing Sr doping leads to an expansion of the hole band spectral weight, and a corresponding reduction in the electron band, indicative of the multiband electronic structure and a doping-driven evolution of the low-energy electronic response. Both doping and temperature-dependent optical spectra display significant spectral weight transfer from high to low energy, a hallmark of strong electronic correlations. In the superconducting state at optimal doping (x = 0.15), both electron and hole bands contribute to the superconducting condensate, suggestive of multiband superconductivity.
If the author has provided any supplemental materials with this article they will be available upon publication of the version of record.