Pressure-induced monotonic enhancement of T<sub>c</sub> to over 30 K in superconducting Pr<sub>0.82</sub>Sr<sub>0.18</sub>NiO<sub>2</sub> thin films.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35902566.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-32065-x and PMC identifier 9334608.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
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Abstract
The successful synthesis of superconducting infinite-layer nickelate thin films with the highest Tc ≈ 15 K has ignited great enthusiasm for this material class as potential analogs of the high-Tc cuprates. Pursuing a higher Tc is always an imperative task in studying a new superconducting material system. Here we report high-quality Pr0.82Sr0.18NiO2 thin films with Tconset ≈ 17 K synthesized by carefully tuning the amount of CaH2 in the topotactic chemical reduction and the effect of pressure on its superconducting properties by measuring electrical resistivity under various pressures in a cubic anvil cell apparatus. We find that the onset temperature of the superconductivity, Tconset, can be enhanced monotonically from ~17 K at ambient pressure to ~31 K at 12.1 GPa without showing signatures of saturation upon increasing pressure. This encouraging result indicates that the Tc of infinite-layer nickelates superconductors still has room to go higher and it can be further boosted by applying higher pressures or strain engineering in the heterostructure films.