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Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms

Superconducting nanofilms are tunable systems that can host a 3D–2D dimensional crossover leading to the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) superconducting transition approaching the 2D regime. Reducing the dimensionality further, from 2D to quasi-1D superconducting nanostructures with disorder,...

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Autores principales: Sharma, Meenakshi, Singh, Manju, Rakshit, Rajib K., Singh, Surinder P., Fretto, Matteo, De Leo, Natascia, Perali, Andrea, Pinto, Nicola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9737164/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36500732
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano12234109
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author Sharma, Meenakshi
Singh, Manju
Rakshit, Rajib K.
Singh, Surinder P.
Fretto, Matteo
De Leo, Natascia
Perali, Andrea
Pinto, Nicola
author_facet Sharma, Meenakshi
Singh, Manju
Rakshit, Rajib K.
Singh, Surinder P.
Fretto, Matteo
De Leo, Natascia
Perali, Andrea
Pinto, Nicola
author_sort Sharma, Meenakshi
collection PubMed
description Superconducting nanofilms are tunable systems that can host a 3D–2D dimensional crossover leading to the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) superconducting transition approaching the 2D regime. Reducing the dimensionality further, from 2D to quasi-1D superconducting nanostructures with disorder, can generate quantum and thermal phase slips (PS) of the order parameter. Both BKT and PS are complex phase-fluctuation phenomena of difficult experiments. We characterized superconducting NbN nanofilms thinner than 15 nm, on different substrates, by temperature-dependent resistivity and current–voltage (I-V) characteristics. Our measurements evidence clear features related to the emergence of BKT transition and PS events. The contemporary observation in the same system of BKT transition and PS events, and their tunable evolution in temperature and thickness was explained as due to the nano-conducting paths forming in a granular NbN system. In one of the investigated samples, we were able to trace and characterize the continuous evolution in temperature from quantum to thermal PS. Our analysis established that the detected complex phase phenomena are strongly related to the interplay between the typical size of the nano-conductive paths and the superconducting coherence length.
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spelling pubmed-97371642022-12-11 Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms Sharma, Meenakshi Singh, Manju Rakshit, Rajib K. Singh, Surinder P. Fretto, Matteo De Leo, Natascia Perali, Andrea Pinto, Nicola Nanomaterials (Basel) Article Superconducting nanofilms are tunable systems that can host a 3D–2D dimensional crossover leading to the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) superconducting transition approaching the 2D regime. Reducing the dimensionality further, from 2D to quasi-1D superconducting nanostructures with disorder, can generate quantum and thermal phase slips (PS) of the order parameter. Both BKT and PS are complex phase-fluctuation phenomena of difficult experiments. We characterized superconducting NbN nanofilms thinner than 15 nm, on different substrates, by temperature-dependent resistivity and current–voltage (I-V) characteristics. Our measurements evidence clear features related to the emergence of BKT transition and PS events. The contemporary observation in the same system of BKT transition and PS events, and their tunable evolution in temperature and thickness was explained as due to the nano-conducting paths forming in a granular NbN system. In one of the investigated samples, we were able to trace and characterize the continuous evolution in temperature from quantum to thermal PS. Our analysis established that the detected complex phase phenomena are strongly related to the interplay between the typical size of the nano-conductive paths and the superconducting coherence length. MDPI 2022-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9737164/ /pubmed/36500732 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano12234109 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sharma, Meenakshi
Singh, Manju
Rakshit, Rajib K.
Singh, Surinder P.
Fretto, Matteo
De Leo, Natascia
Perali, Andrea
Pinto, Nicola
Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms
title Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms
title_full Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms
title_fullStr Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms
title_full_unstemmed Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms
title_short Complex Phase-Fluctuation Effects Correlated with Granularity in Superconducting NbN Nanofilms
title_sort complex phase-fluctuation effects correlated with granularity in superconducting nbn nanofilms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9737164/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36500732
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano12234109
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