Our article “Integration of High-Tc Superconductors with High-Q-Factor Oxide Mechanical Resonators” has been accepted for publication on Advanced Functional Materials."

We realized a micro-mechanical resonator showing both high mechanical Q-factor and superconductivity at 77 K. This result was achieved by integrating a high-Tc superconductor YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) with a high Q-factor micro-bridge resonators made of single-crystal LaAlO3 (LAO) thin films. Bare LAO resonators are tensile strained, with a stress of about 350 MPa, and show a mechanical Q-factor above 200k at room temperature. Additionally, they have low surface roughness. A YBCO film was then grown ex-situ by pulse laser deposition on top of the suspended bridges. Final devices show zero resistance below 78 K and mechanical properties similar to those of bare LAO ones. These results open new possibilities towards the development of advanced transducers, such as bolometers or magnetic field detectors, as well as experiments in solid state physics, material science, and quantum opto-mechanics.

For further readings:

N. Manca, A. Kalaboukhov, A. E. Plaza, L. Cichetto Jr., E. Wahlberg, E. Bellingeri, F. Bisio, F. Lombardi, D. Marré, L. Pellegrino, “Integration of High-Tc Superconductors with High-Q-Factor Oxide Mechanical Resonators” Adv. Funct. Mater. 2024, 2403155.

Results from the OXiNEMS project have been presented at the 19th International Workshop on Nanomechanical Sensing (NMC24) in Vienna, Austria on June 24-27, 2024. This year the workshop has been organized by Prof. Silvan Schmid from TU Wien.

Luca Pellegrino gave the talk “A Hybrid Superconductor/Nanomechanical Magnetic Field Detector for Biomagnetism” and Nicola Manca presented the poster “Integration of High-TC Superconductor with High Q Factor Oxide Mechanical Resonators” and the poster "(La,Sr)MnO3 trampoline resonator for room-temperature bolometers".

Luca Pellegrino gave an oral presentation at the online NFFA-DI workshop “Growth of epitaxial thin films and multilayers by pulsed laser deposition, with real-time and in-situ monitoring of the process and post-deposition analyses” organized on 10 July 2024 by Alessia Sambri (Cnr-Spin).

The title of the talk was “Fabrication of suspended epitaxial oxide thin films for micro & nanoelectromechanical transducers”.

The OXiNEMS project is officially over! However, we will continue to communicate the developments of our activities through social media and the website