Absence of superconductivity in Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx thin films without chemical reduction
来源期刊:Rare Metals2020年第4期
论文作者:Xiao-Rong Zhou Ze-Xin Feng Pei-Xin Qin Han Yan Shuai Hu Hui-Xin Guo Xiao-Ning Wang Hao-Jiang Wu Xin Zhang Hong-Yu Chen Xue-Peng Qiu Zhi-Qi Liu
文章页码:368 - 374
摘 要:The recently reported 9-15 K superconductivity in Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2/SrTi03 heterostructures that were fabricated by a soft-chemical topotactic reduction approach based on precursor Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 thin films deposited on SrTiO3 substrates,has excited an immediate surge of research interest.To explore an alternative physical path instead of chemical reduction to realizing superconductivity in this compound,using pulsed laser deposition,we systematically fabricated 63 Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx(NSNO) thin films at a wide range of oxygen partial pressures on various oxide substrates.Transport measurements did not find any signature of superconductivity in all the 63 thin-film samples.With the oxygen content reducing in the NSNO films by lowering the deposition oxygen pressure,the NSNO films are getting more resistive and finally become insulating.Furthermore,we tried to cap a 20-nm-thick amorphous LaAlO3 layer on a Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 thin film deposited at a high oxygen pressure of 20 Pa to create oxygen vacancies on its surface and did not succeed in obtaining higher conductivity either.Our experimental results together with the recent report on the absence of superconductivity in synthesized bulk Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 crystals suggest that the chemical reduction approach could be unique for yielding superconductivity in NSNO/SrTiO3 heterostructures.However,SrTiO3 substrates could be reduced to generate oxygen vacancies during the chemical reduction process as well,which may thus partially contribute to conductivity.
稀有金属(英文版) 2020,39(04),368-374
Xiao-Rong Zhou Ze-Xin Feng Pei-Xin Qin Han Yan Shuai Hu Hui-Xin Guo Xiao-Ning Wang Hao-Jiang Wu Xin Zhang Hong-Yu Chen Xue-Peng Qiu Zhi-Qi Liu
School of Materials Science and Engineering,Beihang University
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Special Artificial Microstructure Materials and Technology,and Pohl Institute of Solid-State Physics,School of Physics Science and Engineering,Tongji University
作者简介:*Zhi-Qi Liu e-mail:zhiqi@buaa.edu.cn;
收稿日期:27 February 2020
基金:financially supported from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.51822101, 51861135104,51771009 and 11704018);
Xiao-Rong Zhou Ze-Xin Feng Pei-Xin Qin Han Yan Shuai Hu Hui-Xin Guo Xiao-Ning Wang Hao-Jiang Wu Xin Zhang Hong-Yu Chen Xue-Peng Qiu Zhi-Qi Liu
School of Materials Science and Engineering,Beihang University
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Special Artificial Microstructure Materials and Technology,and Pohl Institute of Solid-State Physics,School of Physics Science and Engineering,Tongji University
Abstract:
The recently reported 9-15 K superconductivity in Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2/SrTi03 heterostructures that were fabricated by a soft-chemical topotactic reduction approach based on precursor Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 thin films deposited on SrTiO3 substrates,has excited an immediate surge of research interest.To explore an alternative physical path instead of chemical reduction to realizing superconductivity in this compound,using pulsed laser deposition,we systematically fabricated 63 Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx(NSNO) thin films at a wide range of oxygen partial pressures on various oxide substrates.Transport measurements did not find any signature of superconductivity in all the 63 thin-film samples.With the oxygen content reducing in the NSNO films by lowering the deposition oxygen pressure,the NSNO films are getting more resistive and finally become insulating.Furthermore,we tried to cap a 20-nm-thick amorphous LaAlO3 layer on a Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 thin film deposited at a high oxygen pressure of 20 Pa to create oxygen vacancies on its surface and did not succeed in obtaining higher conductivity either.Our experimental results together with the recent report on the absence of superconductivity in synthesized bulk Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 crystals suggest that the chemical reduction approach could be unique for yielding superconductivity in NSNO/SrTiO3 heterostructures.However,SrTiO3 substrates could be reduced to generate oxygen vacancies during the chemical reduction process as well,which may thus partially contribute to conductivity.
Keyword:
Superconductivity; Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx; Thin films; Chemical reduction;
Received: 27 February 2020
1 Introduction
In contrast to the antiferromagnetic ordering of cuprates that has been generally believed to be a key factor for hightemperature superconductivity
The superconductivity emerged after the soft-chemical topotactic reduction approach,which was demonstrated to reduce the non-superconducting Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3/STO heterostructures into superconducting Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2/STO heterostructures.Nevertheless,during this chemical reduction approach,the STO single-crystal substrates can be reduced to generate oxygen vacancies as well.As the defect levels of oxygen vacancies in STO are shallow,~4-25 meV below the bottom of the conduction band,they can serve as shallow electron donors to make STO itself metallic
Unlike the high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates
2 Experimental
Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx films were grown by using pulsed laser deposition with a 248-nm excimer laser.The substrate temperature was kept at 600℃during deposition.The laser fluence was 1.6 J·cm-2,and the repetition rate was10 Hz.A polycrystalline NSNO ceramic target was simtered at 1500℃under vacuum to produce a possible Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 phase.The target-substrate distance was fixed at 60 mm.The ramp rate for both heating and cooling was 20℃·min-1,and the cooling was accompanied by the deposition oxygen partial pressure.Electrical measurements were conducted in a Quantum Design physical property measurement system.Electrical connections of the samples were prepared using aluminum wire with a diameter of 30μm by wire bonding.The structure of thinfilm samples were characterized by a four-circle Bruker D8Discover X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and a JEOL JEM-2200 FS transmission electron microscopy (TEM) setup.
3 Results and discussion
In this work,by using pulsed laser deposition with a248-nm excimer laser,we first tried to modulate the oxygen content in NSNO films by altering the deposition oxygen partial pressure from 20 (the same deposition oxygen pressure as in Ref.
XRD pattern of the poly crystalline NSNO ceramic target sintered at 1500℃under vacuum is shown in Fig.1b,which reveals a mixture of the Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 and Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 phases
Figure 2a plots XRD patterns of the NSNO films deposited on STO at different oxygen pressures.The epitaxial Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 phase is clearly formed for high oxygen pressures such as 20 and 1.33×101 Pa,which is consistent with the report in Ref.
The temperature-dependent sheet resistance (Rs-T) for the NSNO films deposited at 20 Pa oxygen pressure onto various substrates are summarized in Fig.3a.Overall,there is a remarkable substrate effect on the transport properties of NSNO films.The sheet resistance (RS) at 300 K is varied by more than two orders of magnitude from LAO to MgO.The NSNO films grown on oxide substrates with relatively small in-plane lattice constants including YAO,LAO,LSAT,NGO,STO and DSO exhibit metallic behavior athigh temperatures and a small resistance upturn at~50,~10.~20,~20,~65 and~50 K,respectively.
Fig.1 Substrates and vacuum-sintered Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx (NSNO) target:a equivalent in-plane lattice constants for pseudocubic or cubic perovskite oxide substrates (from left to right:(110)-oriented YA1O3,(001)-oriented LaA103,(001)-oriented LSAT,(110)-oriented NdGaO3,(001)-oriented SrTiO3,(110)-oriented DyScO3,(001)-oriented PMN-PT,(001)-oriented MgAl2O4 and (001)-oriented MgO);b powder XRD pattern of vacuum-sintered Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx (NSNO) target,where red solid circles mark peaks of Nd0.8SrO.2NiO2 phase and black solid circles indicate diffraction peaks of Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 phase
Fig.2 a XRD patterns of NSNO films grown on SrTiO3 (STO) at different oxygen pressures ranging from 20 to 1.33×10-4 Pa (X-ray source includes multiple wavelengths and thus there are multiple diffraction peaks for (002) diffraction of a STO single-crystal substrate);b cross-sectional TEM image of a NSTO/STO heterostructure deposited at 1.33×10-4 Pa,indicating an~6-nm-thick amorphous interface layer and an nano-crystalline layer of Nd0.8Sr0.2NiOx film
For substrates with large in-plane lattice constants such as PMN-PT,MAO and MgO,the thin films show insulating behavior from room temperature.As bulk NSNO has inplane lattice constants smaller than 0.4 nm,for example,its Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 phase has a pseudocubic lattice structure with a≈0.381 nm and the Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 phase exhibits a tetragonal structure with a≈0.392 nm
Fig.3 Temperature-dependent sheet resistance (Rs-T curves for NSNO films deposited on various oxide substrates at a 20 Pa and b 1.33×101 Pa
Regarding the polar discontinuity effect
The Rs-T of NSNO films deposited at 1.33×101 Pa oxygen pressure (Fig.3b) generally have similar substrate dependence,i.e.,they are insulating while growing on PMN-PT,MAO and MgO substrates but are metallic at high temperatures for other substrates.The low-temperature resistance upturn occurs at~113,~30,~52,~52,~100,~162 K for YAO,LAO,LSAT,NGO,STO and DSO single-crystal oxide substrates,respectively.The obviously enhanced resistance upturn temperatures indicate that the NSNO films are more insulting while reducing the oxygen content.
Compared with the NSNO films fabricated at 20 and1.33×101 Pa,the NSNO films deposited at 1.33 Pa(Fig.4a) and 1.33×10-1 Pa (Fig.4b) possess ten times larger sheet resistance and are all insulating from room temperature.Furthermore,the NSNO films deposited at1.33×10-2 Pa are even more resistive (Fig.4c).Finally,all the NSNO films deposited at 1.33×10-3 and1.33×10-4 Pa are highly insulating,and their roomtemperature sheet resistance is beyond our measurement limit of~109Ω,square-1 (Fig.4d).
Up to now,our endeavor on trying to reduce the NSNO films by lowering deposition oxygen pressure to induce possible superconductivity has failed.On the other hand,the other effective way to reducing oxygen at oxide surfaces can be the room-temperature deposition of an additional LAO layer in a vacuum condition such as1.33×10-4 Pa by pulsed laser deposition
We first chose the NSNO/LAO heterostructure that is fabricated at 0 Pa and exhibits the lowest resistance and then deposited a 20-nm-thick amorphous LAO (aLAO)layer on top of it under a vacuum condition of1.33×10-4 Pa at room temperature to form an aLAO/NSNO/LAO heterostructure.After deposition,as opposite to our motivation for achieving better conductivity,the sheet resistance of the heterostructure is instead increased by~50%at room temperature (Fig.5).Nevertheless,this is consistent with our oxygen partial pressure modulation experiments,i.e.,the NSNO films are not getting more metallic or superconducting while reducing the oxygen content,but become more resistive.
Fig.4 Temperature-dependent sheet resistance (Rs-T) curves for NSNO films deposited on various oxide substrates at a 1.33×10℃Pa,b 1.33×10-1 Pa,c 1.33×10-2 Pa,and d 1.33×10-3 (smaller solid balls) and 1.33×10-4 Pa (larger solid balls)
Fig.5 Amorphous LaAlO3 (LAO) capping experiment:schematic of a NSNO/LAO and b amorphous LAO (aLAO)/NSNO/LAO heterostructure;c Rs-T curves for two types of heterostructures
In addition,the magnetic properties of our NSNO films fabricated at different oxygen pressures could be interesting as they may lead to exotic spintronic phenomena
4 Conclusion
The vacuum-sintered polycrystalline target has a mixture of the Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 and Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 phases and shows insulating transport behavior.The transport properties of NSNO films are strongly dependent on substrates,and a tensile strain leads to a more resistive state.In sharp contrast to the superconductivity discovered in the Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 films obtained by chemical reduction,NSNO thin films fabricated onto different substrates at different oxygen pressures are getting more and more insulating by reducing the oxygen content,which is consistent with the recently reported insulating transport behavior in bulk Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 compounds.These results suggest that the superconductivity may not be an intrinsic property of the Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 compound.Instead,the chemical reduction process may have induced other effects in thin films or even in the STO substrates in addition to the reduction of the oxygen content of NSNO films from Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO3 to Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2,which needs to be further figured out.Overall,the convincing and intrinsic superconductivity in a Ni-based oxide may remain yet to be demonstrated.
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