Stripe-Like Superconducting Enhancement and Coexisting Magnetic Texture in an Infinite Layer Nickelate
Abstract
Despite their promise as structural and electronic analogs to cuprates, nickelate thin films consistently exhibit broadened superconducting transitions in many experiments that remain poorly understood. Local measurements are ideal for revealing the presence of defects or competing phases, which may cause this transition broadening through a phase-separation. Here, we use scanning SQUID microscopy to investigate local superfluid density and magnetic texture of optimally doped Nd1−xEuxNiO2 (NENO) (x=0.25) grown via molecular beam epitaxy. We observed a weakly-magnetic texture coexisting with superconductivity. Spatially resolved susceptibility imaging reveals a highly non-uniform superconducting state, characterized by a robust stripe-like enhancement pattern appearing near the phase transition. By resolving the mesoscopic landscape of electronic and magnetic inhomogeneities, these findings suggest that a competing magnetic phase is a primary contributor to the unusually broad superconducting transitions of these optimally doped NENO samples. Understanding the uncovered superconducting enhancement may provide a path to raising superconducting temperatures in these materials.
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BibTeX
@misc{laing2026stripelike,
title = {{Stripe-Like Superconducting Enhancement and Coexisting Magnetic Texture in an Infinite Layer Nickelate}},
author = {Ryan Laing and Dung Vu and Jacob Pfund and Wenzheng Wei and Frederick J. Walker and Haiyan Tan and Pavel Volkov and Menka Jain and Charles Ahn and Ilya Sochnikov},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.15958},
eprint = {2609.15958},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15958},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Stripe-Like Superconducting Enhancement and Coexisting Magnetic Texture in an Infinite Layer Nickelate
AU - Ryan Laing
AU - Dung Vu
AU - Jacob Pfund
AU - Wenzheng Wei
AU - Frederick J. Walker
AU - Haiyan Tan
AU - Pavel Volkov
AU - Menka Jain
AU - Charles Ahn
AU - Ilya Sochnikov
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.15958
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15958
AB - Despite their promise as structural and electronic analogs to cuprates, nickelate thin films consistently exhibit broadened superconducting transitions in many experiments that remain poorly understood. Local measurements are ideal for revealing the presence of defects or competing phases, which may cause this transition broadening through a phase-separation. Here, we use scanning SQUID microscopy to investigate local superfluid density and magnetic texture of optimally doped Nd_1−xEu_xNiO_2 (NENO) (x=0.25) grown via molecular beam epitaxy. We observed a weakly-magnetic texture coexisting with superconductivity. Spatially resolved susceptibility imaging reveals a highly non-uniform superconducting state, characterized by a robust stripe-like enhancement pattern appearing near the phase transition. By resolving the mesoscopic landscape of electronic and magnetic inhomogeneities, these findings suggest that a competing magnetic phase is a primary contributor to the unusually broad superconducting transitions of these optimally doped NENO samples. Understanding the uncovered superconducting enhancement may provide a path to raising superconducting temperatures in these materials.
ER -