Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in an Al superconducting nanofilm grown on GaAs by molecular beam epitaxy

• Published in: Nanotechnology 2020-05, Vol.31 (20), p.205002-205002
• Main Authors: Su, Guan-Ming, Wu, Bi-Yi, Fan, Yen-Ting, Kumar, Ankit, Chang, Chau-Shing, Yeh, Ching-Chen, Patel, Dinesh K, Lin, Sheng-Di, Chow, Lee, Liang, Chi-Te
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0957-4484; 1361-6528
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ab71ba

We have performed extensive transport experiments on a 4 nm thick aluminum (Al) superconducting film grown on a GaAs substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Nonlinear current-voltage (I-V) measurements on such a MBE-grown superconducting nanofilm show that V ∼ I , which is evidence for the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition, both in the low-voltage (T  ≈ 1.97 K) and high-voltage regions (T  ≈ 2.17 K). In order to further study the two regions where the I-V curves are BKT-like, our experimental data are fitted to the temperature-induced vortices/antivortices unbinding model as well as the dynamical scaling theory. It is found that the transition temperature obtained in the high-voltage region is the correct T as confirmed by fitting the data to the aforementioned models. Our experimental results unequivocally show that I-V measurements alone may not allow one to determine T for superconducting transition. Therefore, one should try to fit one's results to the temperature-induced vortices/antivortices unbinding model and the dynamical scaling theory to accurately determine T in a two-dimensional superconductor.