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

## TL;DR

This study investigates how nanoscale confinement in Pb islands on Si(111) significantly enhances the critical magnetic field, allowing superconductivity to persist under much stronger magnetic fields than in bulk material.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that small Pb nanoislands exhibit a critical magnetic field over 7 Tesla, vastly exceeding bulk values, and correlates island size with superconducting properties.

## Key findings

- Critical magnetic field exceeds 7 Tesla in nanoislands.
- Superconducting gap narrows with increasing magnetic field.
- Enhanced critical field due to nanoscale confinement.

## Abstract

Superconducting properties change in confined geometries. Here we study the effects of strong confinement in nanosized Pb-islands on Si(111) 7x7. Small hexagonal islands with diameters less than 50 nm and a uniform height of 7 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 7 T.