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arXiv · 2109.12811

Pressure-induced monotonic enhancement of Tc to over 30 K in the superconducting Pr0.82Sr0.18NiO2 thin films

Abstract

The successful synthesis of superconducting infinite-layer nickelate thin films with the highest Tc ~ 15 K has reignited great enthusiasms on this family of potential analogue to high-Tc cuprates. Pursuing a higher Tc is always an imperative task in studying a new superconducting material system. Here we report high-quality Pr0.82Sr0.18NiO2 thin films with Tconset ~ 17 K synthesized by carefully tuning the amount of CaH2 in the topological chemical reduction and the effect of pressure on its superconducting properties by measuring electrical resistivity under various pressures in a cubic anvil cell apparatus. We find that the onset temperature of the superconductivity, Tconset, can be enhanced monotonically from ~ 17 K at ambient pressure to ~ 31 K at 12.1 GPa without showing signatures of saturation upon increasing pressure. This encouraging result indicates that the Tc of infinite-layer nickelates superconductors still has room to go higher and it can be further boosted by applying higher pressures or strain engineering in the heterostructure films.

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N. N. Wang, M. W. Yang, Z. Yang, K. Y. Chen, H. Zhang, Q. H. Zhang, Z. H. Zhu, Y. Uwatoko, L. Gu, X. L. Dong, K. J. Jin, J. P. Sun, J. -G. Cheng. 2021-09-27. Pressure-induced monotonic enhancement of Tc to over 30 K in the superconducting Pr0.82Sr0.18NiO2 thin films. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32065-x

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