https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04507-y
Regular Article
Restriction of vortex motion in superconducting NbN film via ion irradiation
1
Shanghai Key Laboratory of High Temperature Superconductors, Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Quantum and Superconducting Matter States, Department of Physics, Shanghai University, 200444, Shanghai, China
2
State Key Lab of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), 865 Changning Rd., 200050, Shanghai, China
3
Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, 200444, Shanghai, China
4
Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, People’s Republic of China
5
2-Dimensional Crystal Consortium, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States
b
yangyang-chen@foxmail.com
c
cbcai@t.shu.edu.cn
Received:
29
March
2023
Accepted:
21
September
2023
Published online:
13
November
2023
Tracking the vortex motion plays an important role in improving the performance of superconducting materials and devices. The method of ion irradiation is usually adopted to hinder the vortex motions in the type-II superconductors by generating vortex pinning centers. In this work, we report the transport study on magnetic and electric properties of Niobium-Nitride (NbN) by the influence of ion irradiations on the vortex motion. By applying various values of ion irradiations, i.e., 3.75 MeV-Kr15+, 15 keV-N1+, and 300 keV-H1+; a reduction of 75% vortex velocity and a big enhancement in pinning force of individual vortices are realized, while keeping the superconducting properties characterized by the transition temperature TC, the superconducting gap Δ, and the coherence length ξGL unchanged. Among these samples, an enhanced zero-field JC is found in the film irradiated by 300 keV-H1+ ions at Fi = 5 × 1015 ion cm−2 along with an increasement of pinning force from 1.41 × 10–14 N to 3.71 × 10–13 N. Our work demonstrates the successful restriction of vortex motion in NbN film and provides a promising way to reduce the vortex-motion-related noise of superconducting devices.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
