Negligible oxygen vacancies,low critical current density,electric-field modulation,in-plane anisotropic and high-field transport of a superconducting Nd_(0.8)Sr_(0.2)NiO_(2)/SrTiO_(3) heterostructure

The emerging Ni-based superconducting oxide thin films are rather intriguing to the entire condensed matter physics. Here, we report some brief experimental results on transport measurements for a 14-nm-thick superconducting Nd_(0.8)Sr_(0.2)NiO_(2)/SrTiO_(3) thin-film heterostructure with an onset transition temperature of~9.5 K. Photoluminescence measurements reveal that there is negligible oxygen vacancy creation in the SrTiO_(3) substrate during thin-film deposition and post chemical reduction for the Nd_(0.8)Sr_(0.2)NiO_(2)/SrTiO_(3) heterostructure. It was found that the critical current density of the Nd_(0.8)Sr_(0.2)NiO_(2)/SrTiO_(3) thin-film heterostructure is relatively small, ~4×10^(3) A·cm^(-2). Although the surface steps of SrTiO_(3) substrates lead to an anisotropy for in-plane resistivity, the superconducting transition temperatures are almost the same. The out-of-plane magnetotransport measurements yield an upper critical field of~11.4 T and an estimated in-plane Ginzburg–Landau coherence length of~5.4 nm. High-field magnetotransport measurements up to 50 T reveal anisotropic critical fields at 1.8 K for three different measurement geometries and a complicated Hall effect. An electric field applied via the SrTiO_(3) substrate slightly varies the superconducting transition temperature. These experimental results could be useful for this rapidly developing field.