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UNCONVENTIONAL SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Suppressing superconductivity by adding it

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 913–914 (2019)Cite this article

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Using electric field gating, researchers demonstrate switching from a single- to a multi-condensate superconducting state at an oxide-based interface, and show that this transition leads to an overall weakening of the superconductivity.

Take a superconducting material and add more superconducting charge to it. The end result is a weaker superconductor than the original one. It sounds almost homeopathic but, writing in Nature Materials, this is exactly what Gyanendra Singh and colleagues1 have observed in their experiments on two-dimensional superconducting states residing at interfaces in oxide-based heterosystems.

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Fig. 1: Electrostatically induced transition between single- and multi-condensate superconductivity at the (110) LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands

    H. Hilgenkamp & A. E. M. Smink

  2. MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands

    H. Hilgenkamp & A. E. M. Smink

Authors
  1. H. Hilgenkamp
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  2. A. E. M. Smink
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Correspondence to H. Hilgenkamp.

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Hilgenkamp, H., Smink, A.E.M. Suppressing superconductivity by adding it. Nat. Mater. 18, 913–914 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0384-6

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