Superconductivity in 4-Angstrom carbon nanotubes—a short review

Abstract

We give an up-to-date review of the superconducting phenomena in 4-Angstrom carbon nanotubes embedded in aligned linear pores of the AlPO₄-5 (AFI) zeolite, first discovered in 2001 as a fluctuation Meissner effect. With the introduction of a new approach to sample synthesis around 2007, new data confirming the superconductivity have been obtained. These comprise electrical, specific heat, and magnetic measurements which together yield a consistent yet complex physical picture of the superconducting state, largely owing to the one-dimensional (1D) nature of the 4-Angstrom carbon nanotubes. For the electrical transport characteristics, two types of superconducting resistive behaviors were reproducibly observed in different samples. The first type is the quasi 1D fluctuation superconductivity that exhibits a smooth resistance drop with decreasing temperature, initiating at 15 K. At low temperatures the differential resistance also shows a smooth increase with increasing bias current (voltage). Both are unaffected by an applied magnetic field up to 11 Tesla. These manifestations are shown to be consistent with those of a quasi 1D superconductor with thermally activated phase slips as predicted by the Langer–Ambegaokar–McCumber–Halperin (LAMH) theory. The second type is the quasi 1D to 3D superconducting crossover transition, which was observed to initiate at 15 K with a slow resistance decrease switching to a sharp order of magnitude drop at ∼7.5 K. The latter exhibits anisotropic magnetic field dependence and is attributed to a Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT)-like transition that establishes quasi-long-range order in the plane transverse to the c-axis of the aligned nanotubes, thereby mediating a 1D to 3D crossover. The electrical data are complemented by magnetic and thermal specific heat bulk measurements. By using both the SQUID VSM and the magnetic torque technique, the onset of diamagnetism was observed to occur at ∼15 K, with a rapid increase of the diamagnetic moment below ∼7 K. The zero-field-cooled and field-cooled branches deviated from each other below 7 K, indicating the establishment of a 3D Meissner state with macroscopic phase coherence. The superconductivity is further supported by the specific heat measurements, which show an anomaly with onset at 15 K and a peak at 11–12 K. In the 3D superconducting state, the nanotube arrays constitute a type-II anisotropic superconductor with H_c1 ≈ 60 to 150 Oe, coherence length ξ ≈ 5 to 15 nm, London penetration length λ ≈ 1.5 µm, and Ginzburg–Landau κ ≈ 100. We give a physical interpretation to the observed phenomena and note the challenges and prospects ahead.