Formation of buried superconducting Mo2N by nitrogen-ion-implantation

Abstract

Nitrogen ion implantation is a useful technique to put nitrogen ions into lattices. In this work, nitrogen ion implantation into epitaxial Mo films is performed to create a buried superconducting gamma-Mo2N. Atomically flat epitaxial (110) Mo films are grown on (0001) Al2O3. By impinging nitrogen ions, where the beam energy is fixed to 20 keV, we observe (111) gamma-Mo2N diffraction and the formation of a gamma-Mo2N layer from X-ray reflectivity. Magnetization and transport measurements clearly support a superconducting layer in the implanted film. Our strategy shows that formation of a buried superconducting layer can be achieved through ion implantation and self-annealing.