Structural and Superconducting Properties of Ultrathin Ir Films on Nb(110)

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the growth and characterization of ultrathin Ir films on Nb(110), revealing proximity-induced superconductivity with a hard gap, advancing materials suitable for topological superconductivity research.

Contribution

It introduces a method to grow high-quality ultrathin Ir films on Nb(110) and characterizes their superconducting properties, which is novel for topological superconductor applications.

Findings

Strained Ir(110)/Nb(110) superlattice in 1-2 atomic layers

Transition to compressed Ir(111) surface at 10 atomic layers

Proximity-induced superconductivity with 85.3% of Nb gap

Abstract

The ongoing quest for unambiguous signatures of topological superconductivity and Majorana modes in magnet-superconductor hybrid systems creates a high demand for suitable superconducting substrates. Materials that incorporate $s$-wave superconductivity with a wide energy gap, large spin-orbit coupling, and high surface quality, which enable the atom-by-atom construction of magnetic nanostructures using the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope, are particularly desired. Since single materials rarely fulfill all these requirements we propose and demonstrate the growth of thin films of a high-Z metal, Ir, on a surface of the elemental superconductor with the largest energy gap, Nb. We find a strained Ir(110)/Nb(110)-oriented superlattice for one to two atomic layer thin films, which transitions to a compressed Ir(111) surface for 10 atomic layer thick films. Using tunneling spectroscopy we observe proximity-induced superconductivity in the latter Ir(111) film with a hard gap $\Delta$ that is $85.3\%$ of that of bare Nb(110).