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Register a new userArtificially Engineered Nanostrain in Iron Chalcogenide Superconductor Thin Film for Enhancing Supercurrent
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Although nanoscale deformation, such as nanostrain in iron chalcogenide (FeSexTe1-x, FST) thin films, has attracted attention owing to the enhancement of general superconducting properties, including critical current density (Jc) and critical transition temperature, its formation has proven to be an extremely challenging and complex process thus far. Herein, we successfully fabricated an epitaxial FST thin film with uniformly distributed nanostrain by injection of a trace amount of CeO2 inside FST matrix using sequential pulsed laser deposition. Using transmission electron microscopy and geometrical phase analysis, we verified that a trace amount of CeO2 injection forms nanoscale fine defects with a nanostrained region, which has a tensile strain (ezz ~ 0.02) along the c-axis of the FST matrix. The nanostrained FST thin film achieves a remarkable Jc of 3.5 MA/cm2 for a self-field at 6 K and a highly enhanced Jc under the entire magnetic field with respect to a pristine FST thin film.
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Significant progress has been achieved in fabricating high quality bulk and thinfilm iron-based superconductors. In particular, artificial layered pnictide superlattices offer the possibility of tailoring the superconducting properties and understanding the mechanism of the superconductivity itself. For high field applications, large critical current densities (Jc) and irreversibility fields (Hirr) are indispensable along all crystal directions. On the other hand, the development of superconducting devices such as tunnel junctions requires multilayered heterostructures. Here we show that artificially engineered undoped Ba-122 / Co doped Ba-122 compositionally modulated superlattices produce ab-aligned nanoparticle arrays. These layer and self-assemble along c-axis aligned defects, and combine to produce very large Jc and Hirr enhancements over a wide angular range. We also demonstrate a structurally modulated SrTiO3 (STO) / Co doped Ba-122 superlattice with sharp interfaces. Success in superlattice fabrication involving pnictides will aid the progress of heterostructured systems exhibiting novel interfacial phenomena and device applications.
In the quest for exotic superconducting pairing states, the Rashba effect, which lifts the electron-spin degeneracy as a consequence of strong spin-orbit interaction (SOI) under broken inversion symmetry, has attracted considerable interest. Here, to introduce the Rashba effect into two-dimensional (2D) strongly correlated electron systems, we fabricate non-centrosymmetric (tricolor) superlattices composed of three kinds of $f$-electron compounds with atomic thickness; $d$-wave heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn$_5$ sandwiched by two different nonmagnetic metals, YbCoIn$_5$ and YbRhIn$_5$. We find that the Rashba SOI induced global inversion symmetry breaking in these tricolor Kondo superlattices leads to profound changes in the superconducting properties of CeCoIn$_5$, which are revealed by unusual temperature and angular dependences of upper critical fields that are in marked contrast with the bulk CeCoIn$_5$ single crystals. We demonstrate that the Rashba effect incorporated into 2D CeCoIn$_5$ block layers is largely tunable by changing the layer thickness. Moreover, the temperature dependence of in-plane upper critical field exhibits an anomalous upturn at low temperatures, which is attributed to a possible emergence of a helical or stripe superconducting phase. Our results demonstrate that the tricolor Kondo superlattices provide a new playground for exploring exotic superconducting states in the strongly correlated 2D electron systems with the Rashba effect.
Coexistence of phases, characterized by different electronic degrees of freedom, commonly occurs in layered superconductors. Among them, alkaline intercalated chalcogenides are model systems showing microscale coexistence of paramagnetic (PAR) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) phases, however, temporal behavior of different phases is still unknown. Here, we report the first visualization of the atomic motion in the granular phase of K$_{x}$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ using X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. Unlike the PAR phase, the AFM texture reveals an intermittent dynamics with avalanches as in martensites. When cooled down across the superconducting transition temperature T$_c$, the AFM phase goes through an anomalous slowing behavior suggesting a direct relationship between the atomic motions in the AFM phase and the superconductivity. In addition of providing a compelling evidence of avalanche-like dynamics in a layered superconductor, the results provide a basis for new theoretical models to describe quantum states in inhomogeneous solids.
Superconducting thin-films are central to the operation of many kinds of quantum sensors and quantum computing devices: Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs), Travelling-Wave Parametric Amplifiers (TWPAs), Qubits, and Spin-based Quantum Memory elements. In all cases, the nonlinearity resulting from the supercurrent is a critical aspect of behaviour, either because it is central to the operation of the device (TWPA), or because it results in non-ideal second-order effects (KID). Here we present an analysis of supercurrent carrying superconducting thin-films that is based on the generalized Usadel equations. Our analysis framework is suitable for both homogeneous and multilayer thin-films, and can be used to calculate the resulting density of states, superconducting transition temperature, superconducting critical current, complex conductivities, complex surface impedances, transmission line propagation constants, and nonlinear kinetic inductances in the presence of supercurrent. Our analysis gives the scale of kinetic inductance nonlinearity (I*) for a given material combination and geometry, and is important in optimizing the design of detectors and amplifiers in terms of materials, geometries, and dimensions. To investigate the validity of our analysis across a wide range of supercurrent, we have measured the transition temperatures of superconducting thin-films as a function of DC supercurrent. These measurements show good agreement with our theoretical predictions in the experimentally relevant range of current values.
We discovered a novel annealing method for Fe-chalcogenide superconductors. It was found that sulfur annealing deintercalated excess Fe via formation of FeS2. Due to its specifics, sulfur annealing is applicable when preparing Fe-chalcogenide-based wires or cables.
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