Combinatorial search of superconductivity in Fe-B composition spreads

Abstract

We have fabricated Fe-B thin film composition spreads in search of possible superconducting phases following a theoretical prediction by Kolmogorov et al.^1 Co-sputtering was used to deposit spreads covering a large compositional region of the Fe-B binary phase diagram. A trace of superconducting phase was found in the nanocrystalline part of the spread, where the film undergoes a metal to insulator transition as a function of composition in a region with the average composition of FeB_2. The resistance drop occurs at 4K, and a diamagnetic signal has also been detected at the same temperature. The superconductivity is suppressible in the magnetic field up to 2 Tesla.

11 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• High-temperature superconductivity in iron-based materials
• Combinatorial discovery of a lead-free morphotropic phase boundary in a thin-film piezoelectric perovskite
• New Superconducting and Semiconducting Fe-B Compounds Predicted with an Ab Initio Evolutionary Search
• Possible routes for synthesis of new boron-rich Fe-B and Fe(1-x)Cr(x)B4 compounds

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