Researchers have developed a method that can generate a large, uniform area of ultrathin superconducting material that remains stable in air.<\/p>\n
In this effort, researchers involved from MIT and other places grew the superconducting material, called niobium diselenide, underneath another atomically thin material, carbon-based graphene. <\/p>\n
The graphene\u00a0layer protects the fragile superconductor\u00a0from oxidation,\u00a0while guiding it to grow in a smooth layer over a large wafer-scale area, according to researchers.<\/p>\n
Material maintained its superconducting properties,\u00a0exhibited\u00a0high kinetic inductance<\/p>\n
Xudong Sheldon Zheng, a graduate student in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and the co-lead author of this study revealed that emerging superconductors that are only a monolayer thick have a lot of potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks 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 said Zheng.<\/p>\n
The research team revealed that they\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
Ultrathin superconductor composed of single, closely packed layer of niobium atoms<\/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. 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, as members of the research team recently reported, according to<\/a> a press release.<\/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, according to researchers.<\/p>\n Published in the journal Nature, the study<\/a> reveals an \u2018encapsulation epitaxy\u2019 mechanism that enables the growth of large-area (more than 1\u2009inch), air-stable, monolayer niobium diselenide (NbSe2) films (1L-NbSe2) and explore their potential for superconducting quantum circuits. <\/p>\n This work represents a distinct growth phenomenon in which a 2D encapsulation layer, such as graphene or hexagonal boron nitride, pre-deposited on a 3D substrate (for example, SiO2 or Si3N4) simultaneously serves as a template for the epitaxial growth of 1L-NbSe2 underneath it at the encapsulation\u2013substrate interface and as a protective capping layer against ambient degradation<\/a>, according to the study.<\/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 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, as per the release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have developed a method that can generate a large, uniform area of ultrathin superconducting material that remains…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":987520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[25],"tags":[492,92744,396038,159,88577,396039,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-987519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-physics","tag-quantum-devices","tag-scalable-quantum-devices","tag-science","tag-superconductors","tag-ultrathin-superconductors","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117056215945623363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}