Superconductivity in the van der Waals crystal SnS2 up to 105 GPa

The manipulation of electronic properties in layered materials is of great importance for both device design and fundamental research. Here, we report the pressure engineering on $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{S}}₂$, a typical van der Waals crystal with promising application in the field of photonic and electronic devices, which is a semiconductor with a large band gap at ambient condition. The band gap was tuned by pressure from $\ensuremath{\sim}2.2\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV}$ at ambient condition to $\ensuremath{\sim}0.6\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV}$ at 30.7 GPa, and then $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{S}}₂$ became a metal near 35 GPa. Upon further compression, superconducting (SC) transition was observed above $\ensuremath{\sim}50\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GPa}$, and the SC critical temperature ${T}_c$ increased with pressure, reaching $\ensuremath{\sim}6.0\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$ at $\ensuremath{\sim}105\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GPa}$. Since there is much similarity with ${\mathrm{MoS}}₂$ and/or other metal dichalcogenides, $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{S}}₂$ provides an extra platform to investigate the pressure-driven superconductivity in the large metal dichalcogenide family, which benefits the exploration of new superconductors and underlying mechanisms as well.