Superconductivity in a layered square-planar nickelate
May 8, 2024 (Wed.) at 1:30PM (ET)
Harvard
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. Our work reports the synthesis of the layered nickelate compounds. We observe a superconducting transition beginning at ~13 K in the optimally doped 5-layer Nd6Ni5O12 . Electronic structure calculations, in tandem with magnetoresistive and spectroscopic measurements, suggest that Nd6Ni5O12 interpolates between cuprate-like and infinite-layer nickelate-like behavior. I will also discuss our work further engineering superconductivity in this family with a combination of doping and dimensionality.