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Project

Quantum coherence and confinement in granular diamond.

Diamond can undergo an insulator-superconductor transition by introducing substitutional boron dopants, allowing its tunable electrical transport properties. Due to the synthesis method, there is another essential parameter in defining the physical properties of artificial diamond, i.e., the large density of naturally formed grain boundaries (see Fig. 1). The granular disorder plays a dominant role in the localization of Cooper pairs, offering opportunities for research on superconductivity in the presence of intragrain condensate confinement and granular disorder. The main objective of this project is to fabricate diamond-based networks with a tunable degree of granular disorder by varying the boron doping and size of the diamond grains and the substrate, and to study the localization and delocalization of Cooper pairs in such systems.

i) Well defined isolated individual diamond grains, will be investigated by using scanning tunneling microscopy operational at ultralow temperatures.

ii) Different types of substrate will be used for the growth of multiple isolated diamond grains, to tune the intergrain coupling.  

iii) We will work out area-specific deposition of diamond via nucleation site positioning, to study the superconductivity in systematically defined geometrical patterns. Our preliminary results in the development of sample preparation techniques, encourage and enable the feasibility of this project.

Date:1 Oct 2014 →  30 Sep 2017
Keywords:Granular diamond
Disciplines:Classical physics, Elementary particle and high energy physics, Other physical sciences