Nonadiabatic superconductivity in a Li-intercalated hexagonal boron nitride bilayer

When considering a Li-intercalated hexagonal boron nitride bilayer (Li-hBN), the vertex corrections of electron–phonon interaction cannot be omitted. This is evidenced by the very high value of the ratio λω(D)/ε(F) ≈ 0.46, where λ is the electron–phonon coupling constant, ω(D) is the Debye frequency, and ε(F) represents the Fermi energy. Due to nonadiabatic effects, the phonon–induced superconducting state in Li-hBN is characterized by much lower values of the critical temperature (T(LOVC)(C) ∈ {19.1, 15.5, 11.8} K, for μ* ∈ {0.1, 0.14, 0.2}, respectively) than would result from calculations not taking this effect into account (T(ME)(C)∈ {31.9, 26.9, 21} K). From the technological point of view, the low value of T(C) limits the possible applications of Li-hBN. The calculations were carried out under the classic Migdal–Eliashberg formalism (ME) and the Eliashberg theory with lowest-order vertex corrections (LOVC). We show that the vertex corrections of higher order (λ(3)) lower the value of T(LOVC)(C) by a few percent.