Zooming in on defects that hamper a superconducting nickelate's performance (IMAGE)
Caption
This image of a superconducting nickelate material, made with an advanced form of electron microscopy that reveals individual atoms, shows subtle defects – similar to mismatched zipper teeth – that form when the material is grown on a substrate that doesn’t fit quite right. The inset (right) zooms in to show how atoms in one of those defective areas (top) were shifted out of their normal arrangement (shown at bottom). SLAC and Stanford researchers found a way to grow the nickelate that eliminates those defects, allowing them to see its properties clearly for the first time.
Credit
K. Lee et al., Nature, 2023
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