A variety of nickel oxide compounds have long been studied for their manifestation of various correlated electron phenomena. Recently, superconductivity was observed in nanoscale infinite layer nickelate thin films of Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2, epitaxially stabilized on SrTiO3 substrates via topotactic reduction from the perovskite precursor phase. Here we present the synthesis and properties of PrNiO2 thin films on SrTiO3. Upon doping in Pr0.8Sr0.2NiO2, we observe superconductivity with a transition temperature of 7-12 K, and robust critical current density at 2 K of 334 kA/cm2. These findings indicate that superconductivity in the infinite layer nickelates is relatively insensitive to the details of the rare earth 4f configuration. Furthermore, they motivate the exploration of a broader family of compounds based on two-dimensional NiO2 planes, which will enable systematic investigation of the superconducting and normal state properties and their underlying mechanisms.
@article{arxiv.2006.13369,
title = {A superconducting praseodymium nickelate with infinite layer structure},
author = {Motoki Osada and Bai Yang Wang and Berit H. Goodge and Kyuho Lee and Hyeok Yoon and Keita Sakuma and Danfeng Li and Masashi Miura and Lena F. Kourkoutis and Harold Y. Hwang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.13369},
year = {2020}
}