Research Topics 2011
World-First Demonstration of Zero-Resistance Monatomic Surface Material
-Contribute to Developments of Superconducting Devices-
November 2, 2011
- This research was conducted by
- Takashi Uchihashi, Puneet Mishra, Masakazu Aono and Tomonobu Nakayama
A MANA-NIMS research group has found that a surface material consisting of monatomic layers of metal on a silicon surface exhibits the superconducting property of zero electrical resistance. This demonstrates that a superconducting material can be ultimately thin at the atomic scale. The present result is expected to accelerate researches on superconducting computing devices and superconducting single-photon detectors.
Figure 1. An atomic structural model of monatomic layers of indium on a silicon surface. A supercurrent flowing over an atomic step is schematically shown.
Figure 2. Temperature dependences of the electrical resistances of the monatomic indium layer on a silicon surface. The inset shows the data in a wider temperature region. The resistances become zero below 2.8 K, showing a superconducting phase transition.