Abstract
We have fabricated superconducting samples comprising gallium (Ga) or zinc (Zn) infiltrated into the one-dimensional (1D) linear channels of AlPO-5 (AFI) zeolite, which have an internal pore diameter of 7 Å and are separated by an insulating wall of ∼7–9 Å. The Angstrom-scale Ga and Zn sub-nanowires, arranged in Josephson-coupled triangular arrays with an ab-plane lattice constant of 14.4 Å, display bulk superconductivity with Tc values of 7.2 K and 3.7 K, respectively, which are significantly enhanced by a factor of 7 and 4 compared with their bulk values. While the zeolite template of our composite superconductor dictates the nanostructure of Ga and Zn to be 1D in the electronic sense with a highly advantageous effect for the superconducting pairing, the arrangement in a densely packed array structure avoids the shortcomings of other typical 1D superconductors, in which the coherence is usually completely suppressed by strong phase fluctuations.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 38-44 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Materials Today Physics |
Volume | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 8 2018 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): KAUST18SC01
Acknowledgements: The authors thank Walter Ho and Ulf Lampe for their help. This project is supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong grant RGC 16304314 and the collaborative grant KAUST18SC01 and URF/1/3435. R. L. wishes to acknowledge the support of grants SBI17SC14 and IEG16SC03.