IISER physicists observe no superconductivity properties in gold-silver nanostructured films
Scientists across the world have questioned the possibility of attaining superconducting properties with the nanoparticles of the same precious elements at room temperature, as claimed by a group of scientists of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (IISc), recently.
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IISER physicists have reported no signs of superconductivity in thin films comprising of silver-gold nanostructure. (File)
Physicists from the city’s Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER) have reported that no signs of superconductivity were displayed when thin films comprising silver-gold nanostructure were tested from room temperature to very low temperature during their latest experiment.
This comes at a time when scientists across the world have questioned the possibility of attaining superconducting properties with the nanoparticles of the same precious elements at room temperature, as claimed by a group of scientists of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (IISc), recently. Though the results presented by IISc researchers are still under review, widespread debates were sparked among the scientific community from all parts of the world.
The IISER researchers, led by Satishchandra Ogale, decided to carry out their own experiments on gold-silver nanostructures as they wanted to observe if any characteristics of superconductivity were noticed. Ogale, along with post-doc Abhijit Biswas and PhD student Swati Parmar, carried out tests over 15 days, in order to verify structural, compositional, magnetic and transport properties of gold-silver modulated films that they generated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on silicon and quartz substrates.
“Using our own technique, we grew gold-silver nanostructured film in such a fashion that layers of gold (thicker) and silver (thinner) films were arranged alternately and the same was grown at room temperature in the hope of retaining their separate identities,” Ogale told The Indian Express, after their results were published on arXiv on Monday.
The researchers then characterised these films by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) with energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDAX), magnetisation (M-T) and resistivity (Rho-T) measurements.
“But the magnetisation and resistivity measurements showcased no signs of any superconductivity, neither at room temperature nor within the 5 Kelvin – 300 Kelvin range, which these films we subjected to,” said Ogale, who added that his team was not trying to draw any parallels with the IISc studies.
The IISER team now plans to undertake further studies involving specialised materials characterisation tools, in collaboration with institutes where such facilities are available. “Since we did not have easy access to a super High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) to characterise these samples, we are still unsure of the precise nature of the composition modulation of these films, which require further tests,” he said. “Hopefully, the IISc researchers will come out soon with their explanations about their data and additional results, as needed. At least within our way of making gold-silver nanostructured films, we did not see anything as striking about superconductivity,” added Ogale.
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