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Healing Effect of Controlled Anti‐Electromigration on Conventional and High‐ T c Superconducting Nanowires
Author(s) -
Baumans Xavier D. A.,
Lombardo Joseph,
Brisbois Jérémy,
Shaw Gorky,
Zharinov Vyacheslav S.,
He Ge,
Yu Heshan,
Yuan Jie,
Zhu Beiyi,
Jin Kui,
Kramer Roman B. G.,
de Vondel Joris Van,
Silhanek Alejandro V.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201700384
Subject(s) - electromigration , superconductivity , materials science , diffusion , doping , nanowire , chemical physics , nanotechnology , condensed matter physics , optoelectronics , chemistry , thermodynamics , composite material , physics
The electromigration process has the potential capability to move atoms one by one when properly controlled. It is therefore an appealing tool to tune the cross section of monoatomic compounds with ultimate resolution or, in the case of polyatomic compounds, to change the stoichiometry with the same atomic precision. As demonstrated here, a combination of electromigration and anti‐electromigration can be used to reversibly displace atoms with a high degree of control. This enables a fine adjustment of the superconducting properties of Al weak links, whereas in Nb the diffusion of atoms leads to a more irreversible process. In a superconductor with a complex unit cell (La 2− x Ce x CuO 4 ), the electromigration process acts selectively on the oxygen atoms with no apparent modification of the structure. This allows to adjust the doping of this compound and switch from a superconducting to an insulating state in a nearly reversible fashion. In addition, the conditions needed to replace feedback controlled electromigration by a simpler technique of electropulsing are discussed. These findings have a direct practical application as a method to explore the dependence of the characteristic parameters on the exact oxygen content and pave the way for a reversible control of local properties of nanowires.