Persistence of superconductivity in niobium ultrathin films grown on R-plane sapphire
Cécile Delacour, Luc Ortega, Marc Faucher, Thierry Crozes, Thierry Fournier, Bernard Pannetier, Vincent Bouchiat
DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.83.144504 · Physical Review B
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Abstract
We report on a combined structural and electronic analysis of niobium ultrathin films (from 2 to 10 nm) deposited in ultrahigh vacuum on atomically flat R-plane sapphire wafers. A textured polycrystalline morphology is observed for the thinnest films, showing that heteroepitaxy is not achieved under a thickness of 3.3 nm, which almost coincides with the first measurement of a superconducting state. The superconducting critical temperature rise takes place on a very narrow thickness range, of the order of a single monolayer (ML). The thinnest superconducting sample (3 nm/9 ML) has an offset critical temperature above 4.2 K and can be processed by standard nanofabrication techniques to generate air- and time-stable superconducting nanostructures, useful for quantum devices.
Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval
| Formula | Reported Tc (K) | Pressure (GPa) | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nb Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula. | 4.2 | Pressure not reported | zero_resistance |
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