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Superconductivity of Ga-In-Sn liquid alloy

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Abstract

The superconductor was first discovered in liquid metal Hg. Since then, the researches about superconductors have mainly focused on solid materials, instead of the liquid metal alloys. Recently, the gallium–indium–tin (Ga-In-Sn) liquid alloy was found to exhibit superconducting properties at low temperatures. In this work, the superconducting properties of the Ga-In-Sn liquid alloy (Ga:In:Sn = 62:25:13 by weight) and the Zn-doped samples have been studied. The results indicate that the Ga-In-Sn liquid alloy has the superconducting critical temperature (TC) of 6.28 K. With the addition of Zn, the TC is reduced to 6.06 K. Besides, at temperature higher than TC, a change from superconductivity to normal state appears, and with the addition of Zn element into the alloy, the magnetic susceptibility is improved. Therefore, based on the research of liquid metal’s superconductivity in this work, more physical properties and applied researches on liquid metal can be proposed in future, and more novel applications can be developed.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51973100), the National Key Research and Development Project of China (2019YFC0121402), and State Key Laboratory of Bio-Fibers and Eco-Textiles, Qingdao University (RZ2000003334).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physics, Qingdao University, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Ting-Ting Zhang, Gui-Xu Xie, Guo-Ting Cheng, Si-Heng Chen, Dong-Yang Zhu, Yu-Rui Zhang, Wen-Peng Han, Dong Chen & Yun-Ze Long

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  1. Ting-Ting Zhang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by [T-TZ, G-XX, and G-TC]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [T-TZ] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dong Chen or Yun-Ze Long.

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Zhang, TT., Xie, GX., Cheng, GT. et al. Superconductivity of Ga-In-Sn liquid alloy. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 10021–10029 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-07993-5

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