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World-First Demonstration of Zero-Resistance Monatomic Surface Material

-Contribute to Developments of Superconducting Devices-

2011.11.02

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.

fig. 1

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.



fig. 2

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.



Further information

Affiliations

Takashi Uchihash1, Puneet Mishra1, Masakazu Aono1,Tomonobu Nakayama1

  1. International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)