Synthesis of superconducting square planar nickelates

Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxide materials, there have been sustained efforts to both understand the origins of this phase and discover new cuprate-like superconducting materials.  One prime materials platform has been the rare-earth nickelates; indeed, superconductivity was recently discovered in the doped compound Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2.  Undoped NdNiO2 belongs to a series of layered square-planar nickelates with chemical formula Ndn+1NinO2n+2 and is known as the ‘infinite-layer’ (n = ∞) nickelate.  Using atomically-precise molecular-beam epitaxy, our work reports the first synthesis of this series of compounds. We observe a superconducting transition beginning at ~13 K in the optimally doped 5-layer Nd6Ni5O12 . I will also discuss our work further engineering superconductivity in this family with a combination of chemical doping, epitaxial strain and dimensionality.
 

http://mundy.physics.harvard.edu/