Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userOn the Origin of Superconductivity at Nickel-Bismuth Interfaces
106
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Unconventional superconductivity has been suggested to be present at the interface between bismuth and nickel in thin-film bilayers. In this work, we study the structural, magnetic and superconducting properties of sputter deposited Bi/Ni bilayers. As-grown, our films do not display a superconducting transition, however, when stored at room temperature, after about 14 days our bilayers develop a superconducting transition up to 3.8 K. To systematically study the effect of low temperature annealing on our bilayers, we perform structural characterization with X-ray diffraction and polarized neutron reflectometry, along with magnetometry and low temperature electrical transport measurements on samples annealed at $70,^circ$C. We show that the onset of superconductivity in our samples is coincident with the formation of ordered NiBi$_3$ intermetallic alloy, a known $s$-wave superconductor. We calculate that the annealing process has an activation energy of $(0.86pm 0.06)$eV. As a consequence, gentle heating of the bilayers will cause formation of the superconducting NiBi$_3$ at the Ni/Bi interface, which poses a challenge to studying any distinct properties of Bi/Ni bilayers without degrading that interface.
rate research
Read More
Superconductivity that spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry (TRS) has been found, so far, only in a handful of 3D crystals with bulk inversion symmetry. Here we report an observation of spontaneous TRS breaking in a 2D superconducting system without inversion symmetry: the epitaxial bilayer films of bismuth and nickel. The evidence comes from the onset of the polar Kerr effect at the superconducting transition in the absence of an external magnetic field, detected by the ultrasensitive loop-less fiber-optic Sagnac interferometer. Because of strong spin-orbit interaction and lack of inversion symmetry in a Bi/Ni bilayer, superconducting pairing cannot be classified as singlet or triplet. We propose a theoretical model where magnetic fluctuations in Ni induce superconducting pairing of the dxy = +- idx^2y^2 orbital symmetry between the electrons in Bi. In this model the order parameter spontaneously breaks the TRS and has a non-zero phase winding number around the Fermi surface, thus making it a rare example of a 2D topological superconductor.
In the last 43 years several hints were reported suggesting the existence of granular superconductivity above room temperature in different graphite-based systems. In this paper some of the results are reviewed, giving special attention to those obtained in water and n-heptane treated graphite powders, commercial and natural bulk graphite samples with different characteristics as well as transmission electron microscope (TEM) lamellae. The overall results indicate that superconducting regions exist and are localized at certain internal interfaces of the graphite structure. The existence of the rhombohedral graphite phase in all samples with superconducting-like properties suggests its interfaces with the Bernal phase as a possible origin for the high-temperature superconductivity, as theoretical calculations predict. High precision electrical resistance and magnetization measurements were used to identify a transition at $T_c gtrsim 350~$K. To check for the existence of true zero resistance paths in the samples we used local magnetic measurements, which results support the existence of superconducting regions at such high temperatures.
When investigating low-frequency (0.1 Hz) oscillations of miltiphase high-temperature cuprate superconductors (HTSC) Bi1,7Pb0,3Sr2Ca(n-1)CunOy (n=2-30), a wide attenuation peak with a maximal at T=200K detected. This peak was particularly pronounced in field cooling (FC) experiments, i.e. after abrupt cooling of the sample in the external magnetic field at the temperature T less Tc with subsequent slow warming up to room temperature with invariance of applied field. The attenuation peak height depended on the preliminary orientation (before cooling) of the samples in the measured permanent magnetic field H. On the one hand, it is well khow that, after the FC procedure and subsequent slow warming up, at the temperatures close to the critical temperature Tc, the attenuation peak associated with melting of the Abrikosov frozen vortex structure and its disappearance at T more Tc is detected in monophase samples. At the same time, in most multiphase bismuth HTSC samples, synthesized using solar energy and superfast quenching of the melt, the attenuation peak with the maximum at T=200K was observed. Depending on the conditions of synthesis, the attenuation peak could be two-humped and could be located in the temperature range much wider than Tc of the major superconducting phase. We assume that this is due to the existence of frozen magnetic fluxes (after FC) in superconducting dropping regions, which gradually (with increasing temperature) transfer into the normal state and release pinned vortex threads. This fact could be a sause of observed dissipative processes, so as also the evidence of the existence of superconductivity at T more 240K.
Superconductivity has been discovered recently in nickel based 112 infinite thin films $R_{1-x}$A$_x$NiO$_2$ ($R$ = La, Nd, Pr and A = Sr, Ca). They are isostructural to the infinite-layer cuprate (Ca,Sr)CuO$_2$ and are supposed to have a formal Ni 3$d^9$ valence, thus providing a new platform to study the unconventional pairing mechanism of high-temperature superconductors. This important discovery immediately triggers a huge amount of innovative scientific curiosity in the field. In this paper, we try to give an overview of the recent research progress on the newly found superconducting nickelate systems, both from experimental and theoretical aspects. We will focus mainly on the electronic structures, magnetic excitations, phase diagrams, superconducting gaps and finally make some open discussions for possible pairing symmetries in Ni based 112 systems.
The two-dimensional electron gas at the LaTiO3/SrTiO3 or LaAlO3/SrTiO3 oxide interfaces becomes superconducting when the carrier density is tuned by gating. The measured resistance and superfluid density reveal an inhomogeneous superconductivity resulting from percolation of filamentary structures of superconducting puddles with randomly distributed critical temperatures, embedded in a non-superconducting matrix. Following the evidence that superconductivity is related to the appearance of high-mobility carriers, we model intra-puddle superconductivity by a multi-band system within a weak coupling BCS scheme. The microscopic parameters, extracted by fitting the transport data with a percolative model, yield a consistent description of the dependence of the average intra-puddle critical temperature and superfluid density on the carrier density.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
