Synthesis and characterization of superconducting single-crystal Sn nanowires

Abstract

Single-crystal superconducting tin nanowires with diameters of 40–160 nm have been prepared by electrochemical deposition in porous polycarbonate membranes. Structural characterization through transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction showed that the nanowires are highly oriented along the [100] direction. Although the superconducting transition temperature is close to the bulk value of 3.7 K, the effect of reduced dimensionality is clearly evident in the electrical transport properties of the thinnest wires (40 nm diameter). Magnetization measurements show that the critical field of the nanowires increases significantly with decreasing diameter to ∼0.3 T for the thinnest wires, nearly an order of magnitude larger than the bulk value.

Template Deposition of Metals

“…Metal Deposition potentiostatic conditions. In the case of track-etched PC, it was recently shown that the addition of 1-2% gelatin to the plating solution improves the wettability of the nanoporous membrane, thus improving the reproducibility of the electrodeposition step (45,(48)(49)(50).…”

Buildup of Sn@CNT nanorods by in-situ thermal plasma and the electronic transport behaviors

“…It means the transition tail only depends on the normal state resistance of Sn/CNT/Sn junction, which would be determined by the geometrical arrangement of Sn@CNT NRs, i.e., the density, inter-NC spacing, morphology configuration and the tunneling percolation network. The superconducting transition tail of Sn@CNT NRs is quite different from the cases for 1D Sn nanowires [13], due to the unique CNTcoated core/shell structure. In Fig.…”

“…Coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity was also found in Sn nanoparticles (NPs) with the size in range of 9-16 nm [12]. One-dimensional (1D) monocrystal Sn nanowires show T C close to 3.7 K; however both the electrical transport and the critical field are greatly size-related [13]. It has been reported that the superconductivity of carbon-coated Sn@C NCs will be destroyed as the size decreases down to 40 nm.…”

Magnetic and superconducting properties of spin-fluctuation-limited superconducting nanoscale VNx

“…Small grains can experience spontaneous transitions due to quantum fluctuations. Although experimental studies have been made on a few superconductors, such as MoGe, 1,5 Pb, 2 Nb, 5 Al, 10,11 Sn, 12 and even high temperature superconducting (SC) nanowires 13 in recent years, there are still controversies on what the expected properties of a onedimensional (1D) superconductor are. For the VN x superconductors, one more interesting feature is their spin fluctuation limited superconductivity, which make the superconducting transition temperature T c < 10 K, much lower than the theoretically predicted $30 K. [14][15][16] Achieving fully stoichiometric VN x with the NaCl structure is a difficult proposition.…”

“…The study of nanoscale superconductivity has attracted much attention recently, because it involves such fundamental phenomena as macroscopic quantum tunneling, quantum phase transitions, and environmental effects, and because it has such significant potential applications in electronics circles and quantum computing. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] One of the key issues is the effect of quantum fluctuations on the dynamic behavior of ultra-small superconductors with dimensions much less than the temperature-dependent coherence length, §(T). 1,2 Of special interest from both the fundamental and the practical points of view are the dynamical processes of switching between the superconducting and paramagnetic states in the presence of a magnetic field.…”