Rare-region onset of superconductivity in niobium nanoislands

Durkin, Malcolm; Garrido-Menacho, Rita; Gopalakrishnan, Sarang; Jaggi, Narendra K.; Kwon, Ji-Hwan; Zuo, Jian-Min; Mason, Nadya

doi:10.1103/physrevb.101.035409

Title: Rare-region onset of superconductivity in niobium nanoislands

Journal Article · 09 January 2020 · Physical Review B

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.101.035409 · OSTI ID:1802441

Durkin, Malcolm ^[1]; Garrido-Menacho, Rita ^[2]; Gopalakrishnan, Sarang ^[3]; Jaggi, Narendra K. ^[4]; Kwon, Ji-Hwan ^[2]; Zuo, Jian-Min ^[2];

^[2]

Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); OSTI
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
College of Staten Island, NY (United States)
Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL (United States)

We report measurements of the superconducting properties of isolated Nb nanoislands (600–2500 nm diameters) and explain their unusual behavior in terms of rare-region onset effects, predicted for random metal-superconductor granular systems. We find that the island $$T_c$$ is strongly suppressed even at large island diameters, exceeding 1 μm. This behavior is unexpected given that conventional theories of superconductivity in small grains predict suppression of $$T_c$$ only at a length scale that is two orders of magnitude smaller. In addition, we observe large island-to-island variations in $$T_c$$ for nominally identical islands. Finally, these two experimental observations, coupled with direct measurement of grain distribution using transmission electron microscopy, conductive atomic force microscopy, and computer simulations, provide evidence for our picture in which the onset of superconductivity on an island coincides with the transition temperature of its largest constituent grain, and then spreads to other grains due to proximity coupling.

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Research Organization:: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Emergent Superconductivity (CES); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Walter Burke Institute

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-98CH10886; SC0012649

OSTI ID:: 1802441

Journal Information:: Physical Review B, Journal Name: Physical Review B Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 101; ISSN 2469-9950

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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