Superconductivity enhancement in phase-engineered molybdenum carbide/disulfide vertical heterostructures

Zhang, Fu; Zheng, Wenkai; Lu, Yanfu; Pabbi, Lavish; Fujisawa, Kazunori; Elías, Ana Laura; Binion, Anna R.; Granzier-Nakajima, Tomotaroh; Zhang, Tianyi; Lei, Yu; Lin, Zhong; Hudson, Eric W.; Sinnott, Susan B.; Balicas, Luis; Terrones, Mauricio

doi:10.1073/pnas.2003422117

Superconductivity enhancement in phase-engineered molybdenum carbide/disulfide vertical heterostructures

Journal Article · Wed Jul 29 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003422117· OSTI ID:1657274

Zhang, Fu ^[1]; Zheng, Wenkai ^[2]; Lu, Yanfu ^[3]; ^[3]; ^[4]; ^[3]; Binion, Anna R. ^[3]; Granzier-Nakajima, Tomotaroh ^[3]; Zhang, Tianyi ^[3]; Lei, Yu ^[3]; Lin, Zhong ^[3]; ^[3]; ^[3]; Balicas, Luis ^[5]; ^[3]

Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States); Penn State, State College, PA (United States), Department of Physics
Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States). National High Magnetic Field Lab. (MagLab); Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States); Shinshu Univ., Wakasato, Nagano (Japan)
Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States). National High Magnetic Field Lab. (MagLab)

Stacking layers of atomically thin transition-metal carbides and two-dimensional (2D) semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides, could lead to nontrivial superconductivity and other unprecedented phenomena yet to be studied. In this work, superconducting α-phase thin molybdenum carbide flakes were first synthesized, and a subsequent sulfurization treatment induced the formation of vertical heterolayer systems consisting of different phases of molybdenum carbide—ranging from α to γ' and γ phases—in conjunction with molybdenum sulfide layers. These transition-metal carbide/disulfide heterostructures exhibited critical superconducting temperatures as high as 6 K, higher than that of the starting single-phased α-Mo₂C (4 K). We analyzed possible interface configurations to explain the observed moiré patterns resulting from the vertical heterostacks. Our density-functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that epitaxial strain and moiré patterns lead to a higher interfacial density of states, which favors superconductivity. Such engineered heterostructures might allow the coupling of superconductivity to the topologically nontrivial surface states featured by transition-metal carbide phases composing these heterostructures potentially leading to unconventional superconductivity. Moreover, we envisage that our approach could also be generalized to other metal carbide and nitride systems that could exhibit high-temperature superconductivity.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0018025

OSTI ID:: 1657274

Journal Information:: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Issue: 33 Vol. 117; ISSN 0027-8424

Publisher:: National Academy of SciencesCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (35)

Direct Synthesis of Large-Area 2D Mo ₂ C on In Situ Grown Graphene Geng, Dechao; Zhao, Xiaoxu; Chen, Zhongxin Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 35 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201700072	journal	July 2017
High Phase Purity of Large‐Sized 1T′‐MoS ₂ Monolayers with 2D Superconductivity Peng, Jing; Liu, Yuhua; Luo, Xiao Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201900568	journal	March 2019
Messungen mit Hilfe von fl�ssigem Helium. IX. Supraleitf�higkeit von Carbiden and Nitriden Meissner, W.; Franz, H. Zeitschrift f�r Physik, Vol. 65, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01397407	journal	November 1930
Superconductivity of molybdenum and tungsten carbides Morton, N.; James, B. W.; Wostenholm, G. H. Journal of the Less Common Metals, Vol. 25, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-5088(71)90070-1	journal	September 1971
Surface characterization of α-Mo2C (0001) St. Clair, Todd P.; Oyama, S. Ted; Cox, David F. Surface Science, Vol. 426, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0039-6028(99)00289-7	journal	May 1999
Chemical vapour deposition of molybdenum carbides: aspects of phase stability Lu, J.; Hugosson, H.; Eriksson, O. Thin Solid Films, Vol. 370, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-6090(00)00750-1	journal	July 2000
Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides: Clusters, ribbons, sheets and more Lv, Ruitao; Terrones, Humberto; Elías, Ana Laura Nano Today, Vol. 10, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nantod.2015.07.004	journal	October 2015
Pristine and intercalated transition metal dichalcogenide superconductors Klemm, Richard A. Physica C: Superconductivity and its Applications, Vol. 514 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physc.2015.02.023	journal	July 2015
Magnetic Oscillations in Metals Shoenberg, D. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511897870	book	October 2011
Sulfur-Decorated Molybdenum Carbide Catalysts for Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Tang, Chaoyun; Wang, Wei; Sun, Aokui ACS Catalysis, Vol. 5, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.5b01803	journal	October 2015
Mixed-Phase W _x Mo _y C _z S ₂ Nanotubes Hsu, W. K.; Zhu, Y. Q.; Boothroyd, C. B. Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 12, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1021/cm0011256	journal	December 2000
Anisotropic Etching of SiC Whiskers Cambaz, Goknur Z.; Yushin, Gleb N.; Gogotsi, Yury Nano Letters, Vol. 6, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl051858v	journal	March 2006
Superconductivity above 100 K in single-layer FeSe films on doped SrTiO3 Ge, Jian-Feng; Liu, Zhi-Long; Liu, Canhua Nature Materials, Vol. 14, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4153	journal	November 2014
Large-area high-quality 2D ultrathin Mo2C superconducting crystals Xu, Chuan; Wang, Libin; Liu, Zhibo Nature Materials, Vol. 14, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4374	journal	August 2015
Electronics and optoelectronics of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides Wang, Qing Hua; Kalantar-Zadeh, Kourosh; Kis, Andras Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 7, Issue 11, p. 699-712 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.193	journal	November 2012
Ising pairing in superconducting NbSe2 atomic layers Xi, Xiaoxiang; Wang, Zefang; Zhao, Weiwei Nature Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3538	journal	November 2015
Tuning Ising superconductivity with layer and spin–orbit coupling in two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides de la Barrera, Sergio C.; Sinko, Michael R.; Gopalan, Devashish P. Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03888-4	journal	April 2018
Nexus fermions in topological symmorphic crystalline metals Chang, Guoqing; Xu, Su-Yang; Huang, Shin-Ming Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01523-8	journal	May 2017
Phase transition and in situ construction of lateral heterostructure of 2D superconducting α/β Mo ₂ C with sharp interface by electron beam irradiation Liu, Zhibo; Fei, Zeyuan; Xu, Chuan Nanoscale, Vol. 9, Issue 22 https://doi.org/10.1039/C7NR01609C	journal	January 2017
BCN network-encapsulated multiple phases of molybdenum carbide for efficient hydrogen evolution reactions in acidic and alkaline media Anjum, Mohsin Ali Raza; Lee, Min Hee; Lee, Jae Sung Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 5, Issue 25 https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TA03407E	journal	January 2017
Theory of phase stabilities and bonding mechanisms in stoichiometric and substoichiometric molybdenum carbide Hugosson, Håkan W.; Eriksson, Olle; Nordström, Lars Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 86, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.371284	journal	October 1999
Superconductivity enhancement in the S-doped Weyl semimetal candidate MoTe ₂ Chen, F. C.; Luo, X.; Xiao, R. C. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 16 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4947433	journal	April 2016
Nontrivial superconductivity in topological MoTe _{2− x} S _x crystals Li, Yanan; Gu, Qiangqiang; Chen, Chen Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 115, Issue 38 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1801650115	journal	August 2018
Controlled synthesis of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides: from vertical to planar MoS ₂ Zhang, Fu; Momeni, Kasra; AlSaud, Mohammed Abu 2D Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583/aa5b01	journal	February 2017
Completely numerical calculations on diatomic molecules in the local-density approximation Becke, A. D. Physical Review A, Vol. 33, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.33.2786	journal	April 1986
Projector augmented-wave method Blöchl, P. E. Physical Review B, Vol. 50, Issue 24, p. 17953-17979 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.50.17953	journal	December 1994
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set Kresse, G.; Furthmüller, J. Physical Review B, Vol. 54, Issue 16, p. 11169-11186 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.54.11169	journal	October 1996
Superconducting Proximity Effect and Majorana Fermions at the Surface of a Topological Insulator Fu, Liang; Kane, C. L. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.096407	journal	March 2008
Atomically Thin MoS2 A New Direct-Gap Semiconductor Mak, Kin Fai; Lee, Changgu; Hone, James Physical Review Letters, Vol. 105, Issue 13, Article No.136805 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.136805	journal	September 2010
Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple Perdew, John P.; Burke, Kieron; Ernzerhof, Matthias Physical Review Letters, Vol. 77, Issue 18, p. 3865-3868 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.3865	journal	October 1996
Van der Waals Density Functional for General Geometries Dion, M.; Rydberg, H.; Schröder, E. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 92, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.246401	journal	June 2004
Multiple topological electronic phases in superconductor MoC Huang, Angus; Smith, Adam D.; Schwinn, Madison Physical Review Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.054205	journal	May 2018
Weyl and Dirac semimetals in three-dimensional solids Armitage, N. P.; Mele, E. J.; Vishwanath, Ashvin Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 90, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.90.015001	journal	January 2018
Superconducting Dome in a Gate-Tuned Band Insulator Ye, J. T.; Zhang, Y. J.; Akashi, R. Science, Vol. 338, Issue 6111 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1228006	journal	November 2012
Spin-Orbit Interaction and Magnetoresistance in the Two Dimensional Random System Hikami, S.; Larkin, A. I.; Nagaoka, Y. Progress of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 63, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1143/PTP.63.707	journal	February 1980

Similar Records

2D-EFICACY: Control of Metastable 2D Carbide[1]Chalcogenide Heterolayers: Strain and Moire Engineering

Technical Report · Thu Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · OSTI ID:2335909

2D-EFICACY: Control of Metastable 2D Carbide Chalcogenide Heterolayers: Strain and Moire Engineering

Technical Report · Thu Apr 11 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · OSTI ID:2335910

Scanning transmission election microscopy observations of twisted epitaxial gold nanodiscs in twisted molybdenum disulfide bilayers

Journal Article · Fri Dec 26 19:00:00 EST 2025 · Micron · OSTI ID:2586466

Related Subjects

heterostructure
molybdenum carbide
molybdenum disulfide
superconductivity

Superconductivity enhancement in phase-engineered molybdenum carbide/disulfide vertical heterostructures

Citation Formats

References (35)

Similar Records

Related Subjects