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Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Fabricating van der Waals Heterostructures with Precise Rotational Alignment
Published on: July 5, 2019
Superconductivity in a van der Waals layered quasicrystal
Yuki Tokumoto1, Kotaro Hamano2, Sunao Nakagawa2
1Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 153-8505, Japan. tokumoto@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
Abstract:
Van der Waals layered transition-metal chalcogenides are drawing significant attention owing to their intriguing physical properties. This group of materials consists of abundant members with various elements, having a variety of different structures. However, they are all crystalline materials, and the physical properties of van der Waals layered quasicrystals have never been studied to date. Here, we report on the discovery of superconductivity in a van der Waals layered quasicrystal of Ta1.6Te. The electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat of the quasicrystal unambiguously validate the occurrence of bulk superconductivity at a transition temperature of ~1 K. This discovery can promote new research on assessing the physical properties of novel van der Waals layered quasicrystals as well as two-dimensional quasicrystals; moreover, it paves the way toward new frontiers of superconductivity in thermodynamically stable quasicrystals.
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