Experimental Progress on the Emergent Infinite-Layer Ni-Based Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent experimental advances in the fabrication and characterization of infinite-layer Ni-based superconductors, highlighting progress, challenges, and future research directions in this emerging field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of experimental progress in fabricating and studying infinite-layer Ni-based superconductors since 2019, summarizing key developments and identifying future challenges.

Findings

Progress in sample fabrication techniques

Detailed characterization of electrical and magnetic properties

Identification of key issues for future research

Abstract

The emergence of the infinite-layer superconducting nickelate thin films marks the Ni age of superconductivity, which has excited a huge surge of studies since the first report in August of 2019. Despite of the tremendous attention drawn from the entire material science community and a large body of theoretical studies, the experimental progress has been relatively slow due to the challenging sample fabrication, which may, in turn, be holding back the fast development of theoretical research. Therefore, a timely and comprehensive review on all the up-to-date experimental progress of the emergent infinite-layer Ni-based superconductors is urgently needed. In this review, we first introduce the history of more than 30-year-long Ni-based superconductivity exploration, then summarize the sample fabrication processes, later present the experimental electrical transport and magnetic properties, and finally come up with several key issues deserving intensive studies. This review is thus expected to be helpful for researchers with diverse research background to readily capture the major progress of this emerging field.