Study demonstrates tailored Ising superconductivity in intercalated bulk niobium diselenide

Ingrid Fadelli is a writer for the website Phys.org.

When 2D layers are made thinner, their properties can change dramatically, resulting in the emergence of new features and the loss of others. Retaining some of the material's original properties is more important than the new or emerging ones.

Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Frontier Science Center for Quantum Information have recently been able to realize tailored Ising superconductivity in a sample of intercalated bulk niobium diselenide. The methods they used could lead to the fabrication of 2D thin-layer superconducting materials.

"Atomically thin 2D materials exhibit interesting properties that are often different from their bulk materials, which consist of hundreds and thousands of layers," said Shuyun Zhou, one of the researchers. The emerging new properties are sometimes achieved by sacrificing some other important properties.

Zhou and his colleagues have been trying to find ways to achieve novel properties similar to atomically thin samples without losing vital material properties. They evaluated the effectiveness of electrochemical intercalation in a recent study.

Zhou said that the bulk material was immersed in the ionic liquid. It's possible to inject electrons into a few-layer sample while the ion remains in the liquid. The large-size organic cations can be driven into the van der Waals gap by applying a bigger negative voltage.

Zhou and his colleagues found that intercalation is an effective strategy for controlling the carrier concentration of their NbSe2 sample. In an intercalated bulk NbSe 2 sample, they were able to attain a tailored Ising superconductivity that exceeded both that observed in bulk NbSe 2 crystal and monolayer NbSe 2 sample.

Intercalation strategies include the immersion of a bulk material in an ionic liquid and the application of electrical voltages. The process causes an increase in the spacing between layers.

The intercalated NbSe 2 material is similar to the monolayer NbSe 2 samples. The intercalated material's superconductivity can survive under a large in-plane magnetic field, but the transition temperature is higher than the monolayer. The hybrid material can be stable in the air thanks to the cations transferring charges to the active layers.

While Zhou and his colleagues specifically used their intercalation-based strategy to broaden the properties of a 2D NbSe 2 sample, the exact same strategy could be used to achieve properties similar to those of monolayer versions. This method has enabled tailored superconductivity in NbSe 2 and enhanced superconductivity in Weyl semimetal MoTe 2.

Zhou said that the intercalation method can be extended to a wide range of materials and ionic liquids. Our work provides an important pathway for the creation of hybrid materials with different functions. We want to apply this strategy to other materials to get more intriguing properties. Intercalation is expected to enable intriguing properties in a growing number of layers.

Nature physics has more information about Tailored Ising superconductivity in intercalated bulk NbSe2.

Journal information: Nature Physics

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