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The superconducting gap of an ultrathin nickelate defies expectations

Phys · 🇨🇳 public China · · 1439 words · By Ingrid Fadelli
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What to know about The superconducting gap of an ultrathin nickelate defies expectations

Researchers from several Chinese institutions used angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to study the superconducting gap of strontium-doped La₃Ni₂O₇ thin films. Their findings suggest a nodeless pairing symmetry and a specific electronic band structure that differs from cuprate superconductors.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 11
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

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5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

August 23, 2026 feature The superconducting gap of an ultrathin nickelate defies expectations Ingrid Fadelli Author Sadie Harley Scientific Editor Robert Egan Senior Editor Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current with zero resistance below…

Why it matters

In conventional superconductors, the transition to superconductivity generally occurs at very low temperatures.

Common ground

Some unconventional superconductors, however, enter their superconducting phase at comparatively higher critical temperatures.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Researchers from several Chinese institutions used angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to study the superconducting gap of strontium-doped La₃Ni₂O₇ thin films. Their findings suggest a nodeless pairing symmetry and a specific electronic band structure that differs from cuprate superconductors.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-08-superconducting-gap-ultrathin-nickelate-defies.htm…

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confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 11 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 5
verified Verified By Reference 2
info Single Source 2
help Insufficient Evidence 1
schedule Pending 1
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Claim 1: “Under compressive strain from the SrLaAlO4 substrate, the out-of-plane Ni–O–Ni bond elongates, which reduces interlayer hopping and pushes the γ band top below the Fermi level.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the provided search results to support or refute this claim.
verified
Claim 2: “bilayer nickelates feature a d⁷‧⁵ configuration where both Ni 3dₓ²₋ᵧ² and 3dᶻ² orbitals sit close to the Fermi level.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence mentions electronic configurations and Fermi levels for nickelates generally, but does not specifically confirm the 'd7.5 configuration' or the specific orbital positions (3d3z2-r2 and 3dxy) for bilayer nickelates.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Graphene () is a variety of the element carbon which occurs naturally in small amounts. In graphene, the carbon forms a sheet of interlocked atoms as hexagons one carbon atom thick. The result resembl…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A half-metal is any substance that acts as a conductor to electrons of one spin orientation, but as an insulator or semiconductor to those of the opposite orientation. Although all half-metals are fer…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-metal
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — High-temperature superconductivity (high-Tc or HTS) is superconductivity in materials with a critical temperature (the temperature below which the material behaves as a superconductor) above 77 K (−19…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconducti…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “La₃Ni₂O₇, a nickelate that has exhibited superconductivity at temperatures of up to around 80 K (-193°C, -316°F) under very high pressure.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent sources confirm that La3Ni2O7 exhibits superconductivity around 80 K under high pressure (up to 29.2 GPa).
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Dolchamar is a rock band formed in London and currently based in Finland that performs in the language Esperanto. The band was formed in 1999 by Patrik Austin after his departure from Punaiset Messiaa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolchamar
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — José Gabriel Severino (born 1 April 1974), better known by his stage name El Jeffrey, is a merengue artist from the Dominican Republic. A major album of his is "Mi Vida". El Jeffrey first became a hou…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Jeffrey
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Japanese conjugation, like the conjugation of verbs of many other languages, allows verbs to be morphologically modified to change their meaning or grammatical function. In Japanese, the beginning of …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_conjugation_(mizenkei…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 4: “Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current with zero resistance below a specific critical temperature.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent web sources (Brainly.in, EBSCO Research, and another educational source) consistently define superconductors as materials with zero electrical resistance below a critical temperature.
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web search NEUTRAL — Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with exactly zero resistance, allowing currents to flow infinitely without losing any energy as heat. This unique state occurs when a material is…
https://brainly.in/question/62555162
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web search NEUTRAL — Since they have no electrical resistance, superconductors can carry enormous electric currents without losing energy as heat. This makes them ideal for creating extremely powerful electromagnets. Thes…
https://oboe.com/learn/the-quest-for-room-temperature-superc…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Superconductors are materials that exhibit zero electrical resistance when cooled below a certain critical temperature. This remarkable property allows electrical currents to flow indefinitely without…
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/physics/superconduct…
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Claim 5: “the gap remained open at measured points along and slightly away from the Brillouin-zone diagonal, where the gap in cuprate superconductors typically falls to zero.”
CORROBORATED
Evidence confirms that the gap persists across the entire Brillouin zone, including the diagonal where cuprates typically have nodes (zero gap).
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web search NEUTRAL — Here we show evidence of the superconducting gap in this material using in situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Fermi surface mapping shows two pockets that have slightly larger filling tha…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-026-03396-z?error=coo…
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web search NEUTRAL — A superconducting gap of ~18 milli-electron volts with coherence peaks is observed along the Brillouin zone diagonal. The finite gap persists across the entire Brillouin zone, revealing the absence of…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42166557/
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web search NEUTRAL — Electronic structure and nodeless superconducting gap of the bilayer nickelate thin film. Credit: Wenjie Sun et al., Nature Physics (2026). Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current …
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-superconducting-gap-ultrathin-…
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Claim 6: “the superconducting gap in their strontium-doped nickelate film is nodeless.”
CORROBORATED
Two different sources explicitly mention a 'nodeless superconducting gap' in bilayer nickelate thin films, citing Nature Physics (2026) and other research.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — XNXX Today's selection A sexy blonde brought only a swimsuit to the Alps, so I decided to help her warm up, and she was so attractive that I ended up getting undressed while she gave me a blowjob AI] …
https://m-xnxx.com/todays-selection
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https://www.xnxx.com/todays-selection/
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web search NEUTRAL — XNXX delivers free sex movies and fast free porn videos (tube porn). Now 10 million+ sex vids available for free! Featuring hot pussy, sexy girls in xxx rated porn clips.
https://www.xnxx.com/
verified
Claim 7: “In our films under ambient pressure, the Ni 3dᶻ²-derived γ band does not cross the Fermi level, and its band top resides roughly 75 meV below it.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided Wikipedia results for this claim are generic (High-temperature superconductivity, Metal, Periodic table) and do not contain the specific data regarding the Ni 3dxy-derived gamma band or the 75 meV value.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows ("periods") and columns ("groups"). An icon of chemistry, the periodi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — High-temperature superconductivity (high-Tc or HTS) is superconductivity in materials with a critical temperature (the temperature below which the material behaves as a superconductor) above 77 K (−19…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconducti…
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — A metal (from Ancient Greek μέταλλον (métallon) 'mine, quarry, metal') is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal
info
Claim 8: “The evidence they collected, published in Nature Physics, suggests that superconductivity in specially engineered La₃Ni₂O₇-based films could arise from an electron-pairing mechanism distinct from the d-wave pairing associated with cuprate superconductors.”
SINGLE SOURCE
While there are papers discussing pairing mechanisms in La3Ni2O7, the specific claim regarding a mechanism distinct from d-wave pairing in 'specially engineered films' published in Nature Physics is not explicitly corroborated by multiple independent sources in the provided evidence, though related research is mentioned.
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web search NEUTRAL — As the formation of electron pairs is often energetically favourable, either in the form of a chemical bond or as a lone pair, unpaired electrons are relatively uncommon in chemistry, because an entit…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaired_electron
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web search NEUTRAL — pairing. I Introduction. The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates [1] and iron-based superconductors [12] have called universal organizing principles of strongly correlated elec…
https://arxiv.org/html/2604.17181
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web search NEUTRAL — Based on these results, we construct an effective multiorbital t−J model to describe the superconductivity of the system, and find the leading pairing channel to be an intraorbital spin singlet with a…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376909933_Electron_…
schedule
Claim 9: “bilayer nickelates possess a broad superconducting dome with an electron-hole crossover—marked by a sign change of the Hall coefficient near maximum Tc”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
info
Claim 10: “angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES)... requires pristine surfaces and cannot readily be performed under the extreme pressures originally required to induce superconductivity in bulk nickelate single crystals.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence confirms that ARPES is used to study electronic structures and requires specific sample conditions, but the specific claim that it 'cannot readily be performed under extreme pressures' for bulk nickelates is not independently corroborated across multiple sources in the provided text.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (spin-ARPES) has been the only tool capable of directly observing this central feature with simultaneous energy, momentum, and spin sensitivity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299921231_Angle-Res…
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web search NEUTRAL — Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is one of the most direct methods of studying the electronic structure of solids.The conical surfaces are pressed against one another and the sample h…
https://www.academia.edu/99535700/Angle_resolved_Photoemissi…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Here, we report angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements of 1, 2, and 3 unit-cell epitaxial La2.85Pr0.15Ni2O7 films grown on SrLaAlO4 substrates, through pure-oxygen in situ samp…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41040500/
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Claim 11: “Superconductors exhibit a so-called superconducting gap, a forbidden range of electron energies that opens when electrons form superconducting pairs (i.e., Cooper pairs).”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm the existence of a superconducting gap resulting from the formation of Cooper pairs.
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web search NEUTRAL — BSCCO is a cuprate superconductor based on bismuth and strontium. Thanks to its higher operating temperature, cuprates are now becoming competitors for more ordinary niobium-based superconductors, as …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconducti…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Superconductors exhibit a so-called superconducting gap, a forbidden range of electron energies that opens when electrons form superconducting pairs (i.e., Cooper pairs). One technique that can help p…
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-superconducting-gap-ultrathin-…
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web search NEUTRAL — The energy gap in superconductors is a consequence of Cooper pair formation, a quantum mechanical phenomenon. The temperature dependence of the superconducting energy gap is a crucial characteristic t…
https://studyx.ai/questions/4ltpmns/how-energy-gap-of-superc…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.