Superconducting properties and materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    One trait common to most unconventional superconductors—including cuprates, heavy-fermion systems and iron-pnictides—is that the superconducting state appears near the point where antiferromagnetism is suppressed. Wu et al. report discovery of superconductivity on the verge of antiferromagnetic order in CrAs.

    • Wei Wu
    • , Jinguang Cheng
    •  & Jianlin Luo

  • Article |

    Superconducting flux qubits operating as two-level systems can act as artificial atoms, and so represent a potential metamaterial building block. Macha et al.assemble 20 such qubits into a metamaterial in which the ‘atoms’ are collectively coupled to the quantized mode of a microwave photon field.

    • Pascal Macha
    • , Gregor Oelsner
    •  & Alexey V. Ustinov

  • Article |

    Quantum simulators offer a test bed to emulate physical phenomena that are difficult to reproduce numerically. Using a multi-element superconducting quantum circuit, Chen et al.emulate weak localization for a mesoscopic system using a control sequence that lets them continuously tune the level of disorder.

    • Yu Chen
    • , P. Roushan
    •  & John M. Martinis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When superconductivity emerges in a thin superconductor grown on a ferromagnet, it does so in an array of interacting superconducting and normally conducting channels. Maria Iavarone and colleagues use scanning tunnelling microscopy to image how these channels form and interact.

    • M. Iavarone
    • , S. A. Moore
    •  & S. D. Bader

  • Article |

    The superconducting phase of alkali-metal-intercalated iron-selenide superconductors is difficult to study because of a tendency to separate into multiple phases. Guo et al. report the identification of three new iron-selenide superconducting phases, one of which shows the ThCr2Si2-type structure.

    • Jiangang Guo
    • , Hechang Lei
    •  & Hideo Hosono

  • Article |

    Superfluidity typically occurs at cryogenic temperatures. But Fogler et al. predict that an excitonic superfluid could emerge at much higher temperatures, perhaps even approaching room temperature, in a heterostructure of atomically thin layers of molybdenum disulphide and hexagonal boron nitride.

    • M. M. Fogler
    • , L. V. Butov
    •  & K. S. Novoselov

  • Article |

    The properties of many high-temperature superconductors are governed by holes rather than electrons. Gauquelin et al. use atomic resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy to study the effect of oxygen doping on the valence of Cu ions and local electronic structure around the oxygen atoms in YBa2Cu3O6+δ.

    • N. Gauquelin
    • , D. G. Hawthorn
    •  & G. A. Botton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most superconductors that exhibit exotic pairing symmetries are derived from host materials that are Mott insulators. Xiangang Wan and Sergey Savrasov show that it may be possible to realize an exotic p-wave superconductor in doped Bi2Se3, which is a topological band insulator.

    • Xiangang Wan
    •  & Sergey Y. Savrasov

  • Article |

    Under normal conditions neither FeTe nor Bi2Te3 are superconductors, the former being a semiconductor and the latter a topological insulator. However, He et al. show that when a Bi2Te3layer, even down to one-quintuple-layer in thickness, is grown on FeTe, superconductivity develops at the interface.

    • Qing Lin He
    • , Hongchao Liu
    •  & Iam Keong Sou

  • Article |

    Combining superconducting and magnetic layers offers a route to high-density and ultra-low power memory. Here, the authors extended this idea to more complicated structures by combining superconducting Josephson junctions and magnetic spin valves.

    • Burm Baek
    • , William H. Rippard
    •  & Paul D. Dresselhaus

  • Article |

    Distinguishing the two models that have been proposed to explain stripe-like spin order in the iron-based superconductors is challenging. Avci et al.report an additional spin-ordered phase between this stripe phase and the superconducting state that suggests it originates from weak itinerant magnetism.

    • S. Avci
    • , O. Chmaissem
    •  & R. Osborn

  • Article |

    Metamaterials are artificial media with tailored optical properties that can ideally be altered at will. Jung et al.use superconducting quantum interference devices as switchable meta-atoms to build a metamaterial that can be rapidly controlled by microwave-probe signals.

    • P. Jung
    • , S. Butz
    •  & A. V. Ustinov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, a sharp resonance was observed in the spectrum of a flux-qubit nitrogen-vacancy-centre hybrid quantum system that is much narrower than that of either the flux qubit or the spin ensemble. Zhu et al.investigate this resonance and find evidence of a coherently driven collective dark state.

    • Xiaobo Zhu
    • , Yuichiro Matsuzaki
    •  & Shiro Saito

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although superconductivity hasn't been observed in a sheet of graphene it is found in metal intercalated graphite. A high-resolution ARPES study of CaC6 conducted by Yang et al.provides strong clues as to the origin of superconductivity in these compounds and of ways to induce superconductivity in graphene.

    • S.-L. Yang
    • , J. A. Sobota
    •  & Z.-X. Shen

  • Article |

    In hole-doped cuprates, the origin of a recently discovered nodal gap has posed a puzzle. Drachuck et al. perform photoemission experiments combined with muon spin rotation and neutron scattering measurements in lightly doped antiferromagnetic cuprate and put strong restrictions on the origin of the nodal gap.

    • Gil Drachuck
    • , Elia Razzoli
    •  & Amit Keren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The point at which a magnetic field kills superconductivity in the cuprates has been difficult to measure. Grissonnanche et al. use thermal conductivity measurements to reliably determine this field and find that it drops suddenly below some critical doping, suggesting the onset of a new competing phase.

    • G. Grissonnanche
    • , O. Cyr-Choinière
    •  & Louis Taillefer

  • Article |

    It has been suggested that it might be possible to induce superconductivity in graphene by increasing the electron–phonon coupling through doping. A systematic ARPES study conducted by Fedorov et al.finds that all donor atoms induce an unexpected vibrational mode, with the strongest generated by calcium.

    • A. V. Fedorov
    • , N. I. Verbitskiy
    •  & A. Grüneis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electromagnetic radiation detectors based on superconducting resonators have a range of potential uses from astronomy to quantum computing. De Visser et al.demonstrate a superconductor detector with unprecedented sensitivity limited only by fluctuations in the electron system of the superconductor.

    • P. J. de Visser
    • , J. J. A. Baselmans
    •  & T. M. Klapwijk

  • Article |

    The origin of high-temperature superconductivity in iron-based materials remains a challenging task to solve, but the concept of orbital differentiation of the charge carriers may be a crucial ingredient to the answer. Here, the authors identify an orbital-selective metal–insulator transition and the opening of a gap in the material Rb1−xFe2−ySe2.

    • Zhe Wang
    • , M. Schmidt
    •  & J. Deisenhofer

  • Article |

    Ferromagnets are an integral part of spintronics because of their spin selectivity, but in combination with superconductors selectivity between different Cooper pairs is required. Here, the authors find evidence for this selectivity in a ferromagnet–superconductor–ferromagnet spin valve.

    • N. Banerjee
    • , C. B. Smiet
    •  & J. W. A. Robinson

  • Article |

    Ginzburg–Landau theory provides a powerful framework for describing the behaviour of conventional superconductors without detailed microscopic information about them. Bao et al.construct a similar framework for describing spin superconductivity, a recently proposed analogue of conventional superconductivity.

    • Zhi-qiang Bao
    • , X.C. Xie
    •  & Qing-feng Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity remains a subject of debate. Krasnov et al.describe a technique for measuring the spectra of bosons generated during the formation of Cooper pairs in a cuprate, the results of which suggest that the process is governed by electron–electron interactions.

    • Vladimir M. Krasnov
    • , Sven-Olof Katterwe
    •  & Andreas Rydh

  • Article |

    It is well known that strain can modify the critical temperature below which a material becomes superconducting. Engelmann et al. show that strain does not just modify the critical temperature of iron pnictides but can induce superconductivity in the otherwise non-superconducting undoped phase of BaFe2As2.

    • J. Engelmann
    • , V. Grinenko
    •  & B. Holzapfel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin excitations are believed by many to play an important role in the emergence of superconductivity in the iron pnictides. Neutron scattering results collected by Wang et al.suggest that strong coupling between itinerant electrons and spin excitations is necessary for superconductivity in these materials.

    • Meng Wang
    • , Chenglin Zhang
    •  & Pengcheng Dai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In superconductors with sign-preserving pairing symmetries, Cooper pairs break when they scatter off magnetic impurities but not non-magnetic impurities. An observation of pair breaking by copper impurities in Na(Fe0.96Co0.03Cu0.01)As demonstrates that its pairing symmetry is sign-reversed.

    • Huan Yang
    • , Zhenyu Wang
    •  & Hai-Hu Wen

  • Article |

    Iron pnictide and iron chalcogenide superconductors exhibit similar transition temperatures but markedly different electronic structure. Yu et al.suggest that this could be due to pairing being the strongest in the vicinity of a transition between localization and itineracy in both systems.

    • Rong Yu
    • , Pallab Goswami
    •  & Jian-Xin Zhu

  • Article |

    Attempts to observe new phenomena in graphene–superconductor hybrid devices have been hindered by the poor quality of the junctions formed. Suspended graphene Josephson junctions that exhibit superlative transport characteristics fabricated by Mizuno et al.could be the solution to this problem.

    • Naomi Mizuno
    • , Bent Nielsen
    •  & Xu Du

  • Article |

    Strontium ruthenate is an odd-parity superconductor that could support Majorana fermions. Ying et al. report that the critical temperature doubles near lattice dislocations in this material compared with its bulk, arising from effects that could be found in other unconventional superconductors.

    • Y. A. Ying
    • , N. E. Staley
    •  & Y. Liu

  • Article |

    Josephson junctions composed of graphene are limited by incomplete gate control of the supercurrent, impeding their development for superconducting quantum devices. Here, the authors fabricate bipolar Josephson junctions of graphene, allowing supercurrent on/off switching through electrostatic gating.

    • Jae-Hyun Choi
    • , Gil-Ho Lee
    •  & Hu-Jong Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Iron-based superconductors are promising for its use in building superconducting magnets; however, their high-field critical current density needs to be improved. Miura et al. show that this can be achieved with a one-step growth process that uniformly incorporates BaZrO3 nanoparticles into BaFe2As2films.

    • Masashi Miura
    • , Boris Maiorov
    •  & Keiichi Tanabe

  • Article |

    A system that undergoes a phase transition at absolute zero is said to exhibit a quantum critical point. Zhou et al. identify the signatures of not one but two quantum critical points in the finite-temperature characteristics of an iron-based superconductor.

    • R. Zhou
    • , Z. Li
    •  & Guo-qing Zheng

  • Article |

    The recent discovery of charge order in YBa2Cu3Oy was unexpected. A systematic study of the evolution of this phenomenon as a function of magnetic field conducted by Wu et al. reveals how the competition between charge order and superconductivity may actually be universal to the underdoped cuprates.

    • Tao Wu
    • , Hadrien Mayaffre
    •  & Marc-Henri Julien

  • Article |

    Superconducting circuits may be useful as quantum simulators, but new tools are needed to fully characterize their behaviour. Shankset al.present a scanning transmon qubit, map its coupling strength to a separate resonator, and propose its use to probe photon number in a superconducting resonator lattice.

    • W. E. Shanks
    • , D. L. Underwood
    •  & A. A. Houck

  • Article |

    Magnetism and superconductivity are considered to be linked in iron pnictides. The discovery by Blomberg et al. that the in-plane resistivity anisotropy in these compounds changes sign as a function of carrier concentration and type demonstrates the close connection between magnetism, nematicity and unconventional superconductivity.

    • E. C. Blomberg
    • , M. A. Tanatar
    •  & R. Prozorov

  • Article |

    Quantum oscillations in the underdoped cuprate superconductors suggest the existence of a continuous Fermi surface, but specific heat measurements in strong magnetic fields suggest singular behaviour characteristic of point nodes. Banerjee et al. show how a vortex-liquid state could resolve this dichotomy.

    • Sumilan Banerjee
    • , Shizhong Zhang
    •  & Mohit Randeria

  • Article |

    When a topological insulator is coupled with a superconductor, supercurrents arise that—if fully understood—may allow the detection of long-sought Majorana fermions. Here the nature of these supercurrents is further elucidated as they are characterized as non-symmetric and carried by surface states.

    • Sungjae Cho
    • , Brian Dellabetta
    •  & Nadya Mason

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