Superconducting properties and materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiral superconductors are very rare topological materials. Here, the authors report spontaneous magnetic fields inside the superconducting state and low temperature linear behavior in the superfluid density in LaPt3P, suggesting a chiral d-wave singlet superconducting state.

    • P. K. Biswas
    • , S. K. Ghosh
    •  & M. R. Lees

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The discovery of a new two-dimensional van der Waals layered MoSi2N4 material inspires many attentions. Here, the authors report intercalation strategies to explore a much wider range of MA2Z4 family and predict amount of materials accessible to experimental verifications with emergent topological, magnetic or Ising superconductivity properties.

    • Lei Wang
    • , Yongpeng Shi
    •  & Xing-Qiu Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relation between enhanced superconductivity in monolayer FeSe grown on SrTiO3 and the large nematicity in multilayer FeSe on SrTiO3 remains not well understood. Here, the authors observe a long-range smectic phase in bilayer FeSe films but vanishes in monolayer FeSe, providing a new instability to help enhance the superconductivity.

    • Yonghao Yuan
    • , Xuemin Fan
    •  & Wei Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Compton scattering provides information on the Fermi surface (FS) hence very useful to understand the electronic structure of high temperature superconductors. Here, Yamase et al. perform Compton scattering measurements on La2−xSrxCuO4 samples and observe deformed FS in CuO2 plane due to nematicity but recovering fourfold symmetry in bulk FS.

    • Hiroyuki Yamase
    • , Yoshiharu Sakurai
    •  & Kazuyoshi Yamada

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of spin-orbit coupling on the hybridization of Shiba states in dimers of magnetic atoms on superconducting surfaces remains unexplored. Here, the authors reveal a splitting of atomic Shiba orbitals due to spin-orbit coupling and broken inversion symmetry in antiferromagnetically coupled Mn dimers placed on a Nb(110) surface.

    • Philip Beck
    • , Lucas Schneider
    •  & Roland Wiesendanger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum computers based on superconducting transmon qubits are limited by single qubit lifetimes and coherence times, which are orders of magnitude shorter than limits imposed by bulk material properties. Here, the authors fabricate two-dimensional transmon qubits with both lifetimes and coherence times longer than 0.3 milliseconds by replacing niobium with tantalum in the device.

    • Alexander P. M. Place
    • , Lila V. H. Rodgers
    •  & Andrew A. Houck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The discovery of superconductivity in metal hydrides requires an understanding of hydrogen interactions with the heavy atom sublattice under high pressure. Here, the authors report evidence of a strong effect of hydrogen on the density increase of 4d yttrium states and strong anharmonic vibrations of yttrium atoms in YH3.

    • J. Purans
    • , A. P. Menushenkov
    •  & M. I. Eremets

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The optical response of a clean momentum-conserved conventional superconductor is known to be forbidden. Here, Ahn and Nagaosa propose three conditions that intrinsic optical excitations can occur in clean multi-band superconductors by satisfying one of the three.

    • Junyeong Ahn
    •  & Naoto Nagaosa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effect of Rashba spin orbit coupling (SOC) on superconductivity remains elusive. Here, the authors report largely enhanced in-plane upper critical magnetic field due to Rashba SOC induced dynamic spin-momentum locking on the surfaces of an atomic-layer superconductor.

    • Shunsuke Yoshizawa
    • , Takahiro Kobayashi
    •  & Takashi Uchihashi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the relation of different electronic orders in high temperature superconductors is of fundamental interest. Here, the authors observe a checkerboard charge order along [110] direction of FeSe.

    • Kunliang Bu
    • , Wenhao Zhang
    •  & Yi Yin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How a Mott insulating state evolves into a conducting or superconducting state is a central issue in doping a Mott insulator and important to understand the physics in high temperature cuprate superconductors. Here, the authors visualize the electronic structure evolution of a Mott insulator within the full Mott gap region and address the fundamental issues.

    • Cheng Hu
    • , Jianfa Zhao
    •  & X. J. Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Braiding Majorana modes is essential for topological quantum computing, but it remains difficult to find a suitable platform. Here, the authors report the evidence of hybridization between field-induced and magnetic adatom induced Majorana modes in an iron-based superconductor FeTe0.55Se0.45, providing a possible single-material platform for braiding Majorana modes.

    • Peng Fan
    • , Fazhi Yang
    •  & Hong-Jun Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A recent finding of tuning critical current in metallic nanowires by application of small gate voltages seems at odds with general understanding. Here, Ritter et al. study similar nanowires and link the origin of the critical current suppression to tunneling of few high-energy electrons between gate and nanowire, ruling out direct tuning by electric fields.

    • M. F. Ritter
    • , A. Fuhrer
    •  & F. Nichele

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact of local magnetic impurities on superconducting order parameter remains largely unexplored. Here, the authors visualize the effect of different magnetic perturbations on a superconductor, unveiling a rich correlation of the interplay between quantum spins and superconductivity in different spectroscopic regimes.

    • Felix Küster
    • , Ana M. Montero
    •  & Paolo Sessi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Josephson coupling determines the superconducting phase stiffness and sets the energy scale of plasma waves. Here, the authors show that THz light can induce two-plasmon excitations of both out-of-plane and in-plane phase modes, leading however to markedly different resonant and thermal effects due to the strong anisotropy of the Josephson couplings.

    • Francesco Gabriele
    • , Mattia Udina
    •  & Lara Benfatto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Knowledge of effective Coulomb interactions is central to understand emergent quantum phases in strongly correlated systems. Here, Boschini et al. report a dynamic quasi-circular spectrum of charge density wave fluctuations in the CuO2 plane of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ, shedding a light on understanding how Coulomb interactions can lead to rotational and translational symmetry breaking in the cuprates.

    • F. Boschini
    • , M. Minola
    •  & E. H. da Silva Neto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite striking progress in promoting Majorana physics to topological quantum computation, there are many disadvantages in existing material platforms. Here, Papaj and Fu propose a new two-dimensional system for realization of Majorana physics based on a segmented Fermi surface due to the interplay between superconductivity and magnetic field.

    • Michał Papaj
    •  & Liang Fu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metallization of pure hydrogen via overlapping of electronic bands requires high pressure above 3 Mbar. Here the authors study the Ba-H system and discover a unique superhydride BaH12 that contains molecular hydrogen, which demonstrates metallic properties and superconductivity below 1.5 Mbar.

    • Wuhao Chen
    • , Dmitrii V. Semenok
    •  & Tian Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A collective excitation called Higgs mode may arise in multi-band superconductors via strong interband interaction, but it is yet to be accessed. Here, the authors observe a tunable coherent amplitude oscillation of the order parameter in Ba(Fe1−xCox)2As2, suggesting appearance and control of the Higgs mode by light tuning interband interaction.

    • C. Vaswani
    • , J. H. Kang
    •  & J. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermoelectricity due to the interplay of the nonlocal Cooper pair splitting and the elastic co-tunneling in normal metal-superconductor-normal metal structure is predicted. Here, the authors observe the non-local Seebeck effect in a graphene-based Cooper pair splitting device.

    • Z. B. Tan
    • , A. Laitinen
    •  & P. J. Hakonen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Epitaxial strain is a promising control knob to modulate Tc to enhance superconductivity. Here, the authors show that a metallic oxide RuO2 can be turned superconducting through application of epitaxial strain in thin films grown on a (110)-oriented TiO2 substrate.

    • J. P. Ruf
    • , H. Paik
    •  & K. M. Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent observations of missing odd Shapiro steps have been interpreted in the context of topological superconductivity. Here, the authors observe missing odd Shapiro steps in topologically trivial Josephson junctions due to high transparency of the junctions, calling for caution in relationship to topological superconductivity.

    • Matthieu C. Dartiailh
    • , Joseph J. Cuozzo
    •  & Javad Shabani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recent observation of superconductivity in nickelate thin films has attracted a lot of attentions. Here, authors report single particle tunneling spectra on the superconducting nickelate thin films revealing two types of gap feature with one V-shape and the other a full gap.

    • Qiangqiang Gu
    • , Yueying Li
    •  & Hai-Hu Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fabrication of superconducting 3D nanoarchitectures, using standard nanofabrication methods, is challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate the fabrication of a nanostructured 3D superconducting array of Josephson junctions, exploiting self-assembled DNA origami lattices as a template.

    • Lior Shani
    • , Aaron N. Michelson
    •  & Oleg Gang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Iron-pnictide superconductors share similar topological band structure with iron-chalcogenide superconductors, but no Majorana modes have been observed in the former. Here, the authors observe both the superconducting Dirac surface states and Majorana zero modes inside its vortex cores in CaKFe4As4.

    • Wenyao Liu
    • , Lu Cao
    •  & Hong Ding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors observe reversible nonreciprocal charge transport in two-dimensional NbSe2, and demonstrate antenna devices exhibiting strong sensitivity to driving AC electromagnetic waves in the superconducting regime.

    • Enze Zhang
    • , Xian Xu
    •  & Faxian Xiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    What makes the phonons in cuprates become chiral, as measured by their thermal Hall effect, is an unresolved question. Here, the authors rule out two extrinsic mechanisms and argue that chirality comes from a coupling of acoustic phonons to the intrinsic excitations of the CuO2 planes.

    • Marie-Eve Boulanger
    • , Gaël Grissonnanche
    •  & Louis Taillefer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superconductivity in doped SrTiO3 near to a ferroelectric quantum critical point emerges due to a strong interaction driving the formation of Cooper pairs, the nature of which has remained elusive for several decades.  Here, the authors reveal that pairing is due to the exchange of longitudinal hybrid polar modes rather than transverse critical modes.

    • C. Enderlein
    • , J. Ferreira de Oliveira
    •  & S. E. Rowley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topologically trivial and Majorana bound states can show spectral weight near the ends of a chain of magnetic atoms on a superconductor. Here, the authors disentangle the two contributions by augmenting a spin chain with orbitally-compatible nonmagnetic atoms, where a persistent zero-energy spectral weight at the transition between the two parts is observed.

    • Lucas Schneider
    • , Sascha Brinker
    •  & Jens Wiebe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Arranging magnetic impurities in a conventional superconductor may give rise to Majorana bound states and their manipulation. Here, the authors report focusing and long-range extension of magnetic bound states from magnetic impurities embedded below a superconducting La(0001) surface.

    • Howon Kim
    • , Levente Rózsa
    •  & Roland Wiesendanger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In systems where the spin states have different energy distributions, the different spin populations can carry different heat currents, in what is known as the spin-energy mode. Here, using spin-resolved spectroscopy, the authors demonstrate the existence of a spin-energy mode in a superconductor.

    • M. Kuzmanović
    • , B. Y. Wu
    •  & M. Aprili

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nematic superconductors, exhibiting rotational-symmetry breaking, can form domains; a counterpart of common magnetic domains. Here, the authors report control of nematic superconductivity and their domains of SrxBi2Se3 by uniaxial deformation, a step toward superconductive domain engineering.

    • Ivan Kostylev
    • , Shingo Yonezawa
    •  & Yoshiteru Maeno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum interference of currents was first observed in a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). Here, the authors demonstrate quantum interference of currents in the atomtronic analog of a SQUID using Bose-Einstein condensates of 87Rb atoms.

    • C. Ryu
    • , E. C. Samson
    •  & M. G. Boshier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Among the exotic phases in underdoped cuprates, the evidence of a pair density wave (PDW) remains inconclusive. Here, Shi et al. report transport signatures consistent with the presence of PDW pairing correlations that compete with uniform superconductivity in two underdoped cuprate superconductors.

    • Zhenzhong Shi
    • , P. G. Baity
    •  & Dragana Popović

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To realize ultra-fast dynamics of superconducting vortices one needs to overcome the practical issue of flux-flow instability (FFI). Here, Dobrovolskiy et al. demonstrate ultra-fast vortex motion at 10-15 km/s velocity in a Nb-C superconductor where the FFI is described by the edge-controlled FFI model.

    • O. V. Dobrovolskiy
    • , D. Yu Vodolazov
    •  & M. Huth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theories predict teleportation of phase-coherent single electrons through a topological superconducting island. Here, the authors report persistent Coulomb blockade conductance peaks due to coherent transport of single electrons through patterned InAs-Al islands embedded in an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer.

    • A. M. Whiticar
    • , A. Fornieri
    •  & F. Nichele

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing the critical current of superconductors has been a central scientific effort, but the fundamental understanding of critical currents near 0 K is lacking. Here, Doron et al. report that in disordered superconductors the critical current near 0 K is well explained by a thermal bi-stability where electrons thermally decouple from phonons in a discontinuous manner.

    • A. Doron
    • , T. Levinson
    •  & D. Shahar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interaction between Cooper pairs and other collective excitations may reveal important information about the pairing mechanism. Here, the authors observe a universal jump in the phase of the driven Higgs oscillations in cuprate thin films, indicating the presence of a coupled collective mode, as well as a nonvanishing Higgs-like response at high temperatures, suggesting a potential nonzero pairing amplitude above Tc.

    • Hao Chu
    • , Min-Jae Kim
    •  & Stefan Kaiser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Local magnetic moments coupled to superconductors can form subgap Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states. Here the authors show that Shiba states made with an InAs nanowire quantum dot have large spatial extent, which is beneficial for making Shiba chains that are predicted to host Majorana zero modes.

    • Zoltán Scherübl
    • , Gergő Fülöp
    •  & Szabolcs Csonka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superconductivity through the topological surface states of a Dirac semimetal remains elusive. Here, the authors fabricate a Nb-Cd3As2-Nb Josephson junction and observe supercurrent oscillations from surface Fermi arcs of Cd3As2

    • Cai-Zhen Li
    • , An-Qi Wang
    •  & Zhi-Min Liao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aperiodic structure imaging suffers limitations when utilizing Fourier analysis. The authors report an algorithm that quantitatively overcomes these limitations based on nonconvex optimization, demonstrated by studying aperiodic structures via the phase sensitive interference in STM images.

    • Sky C. Cheung
    • , John Y. Shin
    •  & Abhay N. Pasupathy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The non-volatile switching of tunnel electroresistance in ferroelectric junctions provides the basis for memory and neuromorphic computing devices. Rouco et al. show tunnel electroresistance in superconductor-based junctions that arises from a redox rather than ferroelectric mechanism and is enhanced by superconductivity.

    • V. Rouco
    • , R. El Hage
    •  & Javier E. Villegas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The pairing mechanism of cuprate superconductors is still under debate. Here, Valla et al. report that mass renormalization in Bi\(_{2}\)Sr\(_{2}\)CaCu\(_{2}\)O\(_{8+\delta }\) weakens with doping and disappears precisely where superconductivity disappears, eliminating phononic mechanism for pairing.

    • T. Valla
    • , I. K. Drozdov
    •  & G. D. Gu

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