We study the possibility of superconductivity in a trilayer Ruddlesden-Popper nickelate La₄Ni₃O₁₀ under pressure both theoretically and experimentally, making comparison with the recently discovered high Tc superconductor La₃Ni₂O₇, a bilayer nickelate. Through DFT calculations, we find that a structural phase transition from monoclinic to tetragonal takes place around 10--15 GPa. Using the tetragonal crystal structure, we theoretically investigate the possibility of superconductivity, where a combination of fluctuation exchange approximation and linearized Eliashberg equation is applied to a six-orbital model constructed from first-principles band calculations. The obtained results suggests that La₄Ni₃O₁₀ may also become superconducting under high pressure with Tc comparable to some cuprates, although it is not as high as La₃Ni₂O₇. We also perform experimental studies using our polycrystalline samples of La₃Ni₂O7.01 and La₄Ni₃O9.99. The superconducting transition of La₃Ni₂O7.01, with a maximum onset Tc of 67.0 K at a pressure of 26.5 GPa, is confirmed by a drop in the electrical resistance as well as the magnetic-field dependence of the resistance. Quite interestingly, similar temperature and magnetic field dependencies of the resistance are also observed for La₄Ni₃O9.99, where a drop in the resistance is observed at lower temperatures compared to La₃Ni₂O7.01, under pressures of 32.8 GPa and above. Given the theoretical expectation, the reduction in the resistance can most likely be attributed to the occurrence of superconductivity in La₄Ni₃O9.99. The temperature at which the resistance deviates from linear behavior, considered as the onset Tc, monotonically increases up to 23 K at 79.2 GPa, which is opposite to the pressure dependence of Tc in La₃Ni₂O7.01.
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Sakakibara et al. (2024) studied this question.
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