  Layered platinum tellurium (PtTe2) was recently synthesized with controllable
layer numbers down to a monolayer limit. Using ab initio calculations based on
anisotropic Midgal-Eliashberg formalism, we show that by rubidium (Rb)
intercalation, weak superconductivity in bilayer PtTe2 can be significantly
boosted with superconducting Tc = 8 K in the presence of spin-orbit coupling
(SOC). The intercalant on one hand mediates the interlayer coupling and serves
as an electron donor, leading to large density of states at Fermi energy. On
the other hand, it increases the mass-enhancement parameter with
electron-phonon coupling strength comparable to that of Pt. The potassium
intercalated bilayer PtTe2 has a comparable Tc to the case of Rb intercalation.
The relatively high Tc with SOC combined with experimental accessible crystal
structures suggest that these superconductors are promising platforms to study
the novel quantum physics associated with two-dimensional superconductivity,
such as the recently proposed type-II Ising superconductivity.
