Thickness Dependence of Superconductivity in Layered Topological Superconductor β-PdBi2

Huijie Li; Huanhuan Wang; Wenshuai Gao; Zheng Chen; Yuyan Han; Xiangde Zhu; Mingliang Tian

doi:10.3390/nano11112826

Thickness Dependence of Superconductivity in Layered Topological Superconductor β-PdBi₂

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2021 Oct 24;11(11):2826. doi: 10.3390/nano11112826.

Authors

Huijie Li^{1

2}, Huanhuan Wang¹, Wenshuai Gao¹, Zheng Chen^{2

3}, Yuyan Han², Xiangde Zhu², Mingliang Tian^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Information Materials and Intelligent Sensing Laboratory of Anhui Province, Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China.
² Anhui Key Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics at Extreme Conditions, High Magnetic Field Laboratory, HFIPS, Anhui, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China.
³ Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230031, China.
⁴ School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China.

Abstract

We report a systematic study on the thickness-dependent superconductivity and transport properties in exfoliated layered topological superconductor β-PdBi₂. The superconducting transition temperature T_c is found to decrease with the decreasing thickness. Below a critical thickness of 45 nm, the superconductivity is suppressed, but followed by an abrupt resistance jump near T_c, which is in opposite to the behavior in a superconductor. We attribute suppressed T_c to the enhanced disorder as the thickness decreases. The possible physical mechanisms were discussed for the origination of sharply increased resistance in thinner β-PdBi₂ samples.

Keywords: PdBi2; nanoflakes; topological superconductor; transport property.