TY - JOUR
AU1 - Smolyaninov, Igor I.
AU2 - Smolyaninova, Vera N.
AB - AbstractSearching for natural materials exhibiting larger electron-electron interactions constitutes a traditional approach to high-temperature superconductivity research. Very recently, we pointed out that the newly developed field of electromagnetic metamaterials deals with the somewhat related task of dielectric response engineering on a sub-100-nm scale. Considerable enhancement of the electron-electron interaction may be expected in such metamaterial scenarios as in epsilon near-zero (ENZ) and hyperbolic metamaterials. In both cases, dielectric function may become small and negative in substantial portions of the relevant four-momentum space, leading to enhancement of the electron pairing interaction. This approach has been verified in experiments with aluminum-based metamaterials. Metamaterial superconductor with Tc=3.9 K have been fabricated, which is three times that of pure aluminum (Tc=1.2 K), which opens up new possibilities to improve the Tc of other simple superconductors considerably. Taking advantage of the demonstrated success of this approach, the critical temperature of hypothetical niobium, MgB2- and H2S-based metamaterial superconductors is evaluated. The MgB2-based metamaterial superconductors are projected to reach the liquid nitrogen temperature range. In the case of an H2S-based metamaterial, the projected Tc appears to reach ~250 K.
TI - Metamaterial superconductors
JF - Nanophotonics
DO - 10.1515/nanoph-2017-0115
DA - 2018-05-24
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/de-gruyter/metamaterial-superconductors-J0FmMQ2uvx
SP - 795
EP - 818
VL - 7
IS - 5
DP - DeepDyve