3D printed mesoporous superconductors with periodic order on three length scales and enhanced properties via block copolymer directed self-assembly

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the creation of 3D printed mesoporous superconductors with hierarchical order on three scales, showing enhanced critical fields and surface areas, enabled by block copolymer self-assembly and additive manufacturing techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for fabricating hierarchically porous superconductors with tailored properties using block copolymer directed self-assembly and direct ink writing.

Findings

Achieved record nanoconfinement-induced upper critical fields of 50 T for NbN.

Produced surface areas above 120 m$^2$/g, highest for compound superconductors.

First demonstration of BCP directed mesoporous non-self-supporting helical superconductors.

Abstract

Solution-based soft matter self-assembly (SA) promises unique materials properties from approaches including additive manufacturing/three-dimensional (3D) printing. We report direct ink writing derived, hierarchically porous transition metal nitride superconductors (SCs) and precursor oxides, structure-directed by Pluronics-family block copolymer (BCP) SA and heat treated in various environments. SCs with periodic lattices on three length scales show record nanoconfinement-induced upper critical field enhancements correlated with BCP molar mass, attaining values of 50 T for NbN and 8.1 T for non-optimized TiN samples, the first mapping of a tailorable SC property onto a macromolecular parameter. They reach surface areas above 120 m$^2$/g, the highest reported for compound SCs to date. Embedded printing enables the first BCP directed mesoporous non-self-supporting helical SCs. Results suggest that additive manufacturing may open pathways to mesoporous SCs with not only a variety of macroscopic form factors but enhanced properties from intrinsic, SA-derived mesostructures with substantial academic and technological promise.