{"id":622078,"date":"2026-08-05T16:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/622078\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:29:14","slug":"researchers-make-air-stable-ultrathin-superconductors-for-more-scalable-quantum-devices-mit-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/622078\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers make air-stable, ultrathin superconductors, for more scalable quantum devices | MIT News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The researchers\u00a0further\u00a0integrated this air-stable superconductor into a\u00a0superconducting microwave\u00a0circuit. When tested, the material maintained its superconducting properties and\u00a0exhibited\u00a0high kinetic inductance, which is a resource for many quantum devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the long run, this advance could\u00a0help miniaturize superconducting quantum computing hardware, as well as\u00a0technologies like ultrasensitive quantum detectors for communications or cosmology.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmerging superconductors that are only a monolayer thick have a lot of potential. Thanks to our new process, they are no longer materials that can only be made at a very small scale. There are now exciting opportunities for scientists to study these materials, utilize them in circuits, and explore their practical applications,\u201d says co-lead author Xudong Sheldon Zheng, a graduate student in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).<\/p>\n

He is joined on the paper by co-lead authors Sameia Zaman SM \u201924, an EECS graduate student, and Kenan Zhang, a recent postdoc in the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE); corresponding authors William D. Oliver, the Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of EECS and professor of physics, director of the Center for Quantum Engineering, and associate director of RLE; Joel \u00ce-j. Wang, an assistant professor at New York University; and Jing Kong, the Jerry Mcafee (1940)\u00a0Professor in Engineering at MIT and a member of RLE; as well as others at MIT and Lincoln Laboratory, Rice University, Yale University, and Pohang University in South Korea. The research appears today in Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Powerful properties<\/strong><\/p>\n

Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity without resistance, and they are essential for some types of quantum devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two-dimensional superconducting materials retain their superconducting properties despite being only a few atoms thick. These materials hold the promise to miniaturize superconducting circuitry.<\/p>\n

Niobium diselenide, an ultrathin superconductor composed of a single, closely packed layer of niobium atoms sandwiched between a single layer of selenium atoms on either side, has a very high kinetic inductance<\/a>, as members of the research team recently reported.<\/p>\n

This enables the material to store a great deal of inductive energy in a very small area.\u00a0Large kinetic inductance in a small form-factor is a desirable design element in many quantum devices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One commonly used approach to realizing a large kinetic inductance is to string together an array of devices called Josephson junctions.<\/p>\n

If scientists could incorporate materials such as thin niobium diselenide with sufficiently large kinetic inductance into a quantum circuit, they could replace the large area of electronic junctions with a tiny piece of thin-film material, making the circuit more compact. But because niobium diselenide degrades rapidly in air, scientists have not been able to reliably fabricate devices at the wafer scale. Instead, they rely on\u00a0exfoliation\u00a0techniques\u00a0that yield small\u00a0flakes. Furthermore, researchers have struggled to grow material\u00a0with\u00a0uniform\u00a0monolayer\u00a0thickness. Consequently, it has been challenging to fully probe its properties or test it in practical applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, once we make the material and remove it from its inert environment, it immediately\u00a0starts to\u00a0oxidize and degrade,\u00a0ultimately becoming\u00a0damaged,\u201d Zheng explains.<\/p>\n

Scientists usually grow niobium diselenide by depositing chemical precursors onto a silicon dioxide substrate. Then they place another layer of two-dimensional material, like graphene or hexagonal boron nitride, on top to protect the fragile superconductor from air.<\/p>\n

But such postgrowth protection presents a challenge. The superconductor begins to oxidize almost immediately after synthesis, degrading its properties before it is protected. Meanwhile, the protection process requires a stringent inert environment and delicate processing.<\/p>\n

Mind the gap<\/strong><\/p>\n

The MIT researchers used a different tactic. They put the layer of graphene on top of the silicon\u00a0dioxide\u00a0substrate first. Then they deposited the precursors\u00a0and grew the superconducting material in the tiny gap between the two layers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a long time for us to\u00a0understand how the growth\u00a0could\u00a0happen underneath the graphene. Through collaboration and discussion, we eventually\u00a0uncovered the mechanism for growing\u00a0the material at the interface, and this solves a lot of problems and allows us to simplify our fabrication steps,\u201d Zheng says.<\/p>\n

The silicon dioxide substrate helps trap the precursors long enough for the crystal to begin forming, while the graphene layer allows them to move\u00a0around easily\u00a0and spread into a continuous monolayer.<\/p>\n

The researchers used this technique to generate a perfectly smooth layer of niobium diselenide more than an inch in size.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy carefully tuning the growth conditions, we can ensure the material grows between the layers in exactly the way we\u2019ve designed,\u201d Zheng says.<\/p>\n

Even though the graphene is placed on top of the silicon dioxide, the weak adhesion between these materials leaves a gap between them less than 1 nanometer thick. The niobium diselenide grows only within that gap. Then, since it is already encapsulated by graphene, the researchers can safely remove it into the ambient environment without causing degradation.<\/p>\n

Careful connections<\/strong><\/p>\n

The researchers also designed an\u00a0oxidation-free transfer technique to peel the\u00a0graphene-niobium diselenide structure from its\u00a0growth substrate, building on prior work by members of the team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, they developed a method to integrate the thin film into a quantum circuit without hampering the fragile superconductor or its properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is challenging to make a good electrical connection between this very thin material, which is only about 1 nanometer in thickness, and our electrodes, which are a few hundred nanometers in thickness,\u201d Zaman says.<\/p>\n

They carefully etch the side walls of the thin-film superconductor in a vacuum chamber, which preserves the smooth edge of the material. When they integrate the prepared niobium-graphene structure into a conventional superconducting circuit, it forms a reliable electrical connection. Importantly, the material maintained its superconducting properties and\u00a0exhibited high kinetic inductance\u00a0after\u00a0clean room fabrication and\u00a0integration\u00a0into the circuit. This makes it particularly attractive for fabricating compact superconducting quantum devices and other quantum technologies.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the growth strategy is not limited to monolayer niobium diselenide. The researchers demonstrated that it can be extended to a broad family of monolayer quantum materials with diverse and technologically important properties.<\/p>\n

In the future, the researchers aim to integrate these ultrathin superconducting materials into functional device architectures to enable the exploration of fundamental physics and the prototyping of quantum devices and other advanced technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken a very good step toward exploring both the physics and the application side of this thin, monolayer superconductor, which we can now grow in wafer scale or in even larger areas. There are a lot of directions we can go in the future,\u201d Zaman says.<\/p>\n

This research was funded, in part, by the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Schlumberger Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Semiconductor Research Corporation Center, the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, and the National Research Foundation of Korea. This work was carried out, in part, using MIT.nano facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The researchers\u00a0further\u00a0integrated this air-stable superconductor into a\u00a0superconducting microwave\u00a0circuit. When tested, the material maintained its superconducting properties and\u00a0exhibited\u00a0high kinetic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[174009,18,7360,19,17,262800,262799,262798,262801,452,262797,133,151124,210281,262796],"class_list":["post-622078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-2-d-materials","tag-eire","tag-graphene","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jing-kong","tag-joel-i-j-wang","tag-kenan-zhang","tag-niobium-diselenide","tag-physics","tag-sameia-zaman","tag-science","tag-superconducting-materials","tag-william-d-oliver","tag-xudong-sheldon-zheng"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117043853141683522","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}