New Publication in Phys. Rev. B

December 7, 2016 / Sebastian Loth

Closing the superconducting gap in small Pb nanoislands with high magnetic fields

New publication in Physical Review B

Closing the superconducting gap in small Pb nanoislands with high magnetic fields

 

Abstract

Superconducting properties change in confined geometries. Here we study the effects of strong confinement in nanosized Pb islands on Si(111) 7×7. Small hexagonal islands with diameters less than 50 nm and a uniform height of seven atomic layers are formed by depositing Pb at low temperature and annealing at 300 K. We measure the tunneling spectra of individual Pb nanoislands using a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope operated at 0.6 K and follow the narrowing of the superconducting gap as a function of magnetic field. We find the critical magnetic field, at which the superconducting gap vanishes, reaches several Tesla, which represents a greater than 50-fold enhancement compared to the bulk value. By independently measuring the size of the superconducting gap, and the critical magnetic field that quenches superconductivity for a range of nanoislands, we can correlate these two fundamental parameters and estimate the maximal achievable critical field for 7 ML Pb nanoislands to be 7 T.

Phys. Rev. B 94, 224504

Phys. Rev. B 94, 224504

All News of the Farinacci group


November 2024

October 2024

August 2024

July 2024

March 2024

November 2023

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

June 2023

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

October 2022

September 2022

August 2022

February 2022

January 2022

December 2020

November 2020

May 2019

December 2018

August 2018

December 2017

November 2017

October 2017

July 2017

December 2016

August 2016

March 2015

To the top of the page