3D printed mesoporous superconductors with periodic order on three length scales and enhanced properties via block copolymer directed self-assembly

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2410.04569
• Publication Date: 2024-10-06
• Authors: Fei Yu; R. Paxton Thedford; Thomas A. Tartaglia; Sujit Sheth; Guillaume Freychet; William R. T. Tait; Peter A. Beaucage; William L. Moore; Yuanzhi Li; Jörg G. Werner; Julia Thom-Levy; Sol M. Grüner; R. B. van Dover; Ulrich Wiesner
• Keywords: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con); Condensed Matter - Materials Science; Condensed Matter - Superconductivity; Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft); Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); FOS: Physical sciences; Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter

Solution-based soft matter self-assembly (SA) promises unique materials properties from approaches including additive manufacturing/three-dimensional (3D) printing. We report direct ink writing derived, hierarchically porous transition metal nitride superconductors (SCs) and precursor oxides, structure-directed by Pluronics-family block copolymer (BCP) SA heat treated in various environments. SCs with periodic lattices on three length scales show record nanoconfinement-induced upper critical field enhancements correlated BCP molar mass, attaining values of 50 T for NbN 8.1 non-optimized TiN samples, the first mapping a tailorable SC property onto macromolecular parameter. They reach surface areas above 120 m$^2$/g, highest reported compound to date. Embedded printing enables directed mesoporous non-self-supporting helical SCs. Results suggest that manufacturing may open pathways not only variety macroscopic form factors but enhanced intrinsic, SA-derived mesostructures substantial academic technological promise.