Leveraging mechanical frustration in the flatland: A pathway to ambient-pressure strain-engineered superconductivity

Abstract

Pressure-enabled superconductivity has so far been associated mainly with bulk materials that require extreme external pressures, which sharply limits device relevance despite spectacular transition temperatures. This Perspective argues that mechanically frustrated van der Waals heterostructures could act as an internal-pressure platform for the more restricted but technologically more accessible class of two-dimensional superconductors whose transition temperatures are sensitive to modest biaxial in-plane compression. The strategy is not proposed as a route to reproducing megabar-pressure hydride superconductivity, but as a way to translate the pressure-tunable behavior already observed in layered superconductors into a stable, substrate-free architecture. Rather than claiming that superconductivity has already been achieved in such systems, this article assesses why the concept is timely, what the recent literature now makes possible, what a prototype CrS2|PtTe2 stack does and does not establish, and which scientific questions must be answered next. In my view, the importance of this direction lies in its potential to translate pressure-enabled superconductivity from a high-pressure discovery platform into an applied-physics design strategy.