Superconductivity sets in at up to 5.3 K in few-layer MoTe₂
Yuan Gan and colleagues compared the superconducting transition in flakes and bulk material, then used a gate to tune the flakes’ transition temperature and critical field.
The researchers mechanically exfoliated MoTe₂ flakes and measured their resistance on cooling. Some began the transition to superconductivity at 5.3 K, above the onset temperature in bulk material. Changing the gate voltage shifted the transition temperature by up to about 0.32 K.
Yuan Gan is the first author and Liyuan Zhang of SUSTech is the corresponding author of the Chinese Physics B paper. Measurements with the field parallel to the flakes also placed the upper critical field above the Pauli limit.