The quest to create superconductors with higher transition
temperatures is as old as superconductivity itself. One strategy,
popular after the realization that (conventional) superconductivity is
mediated by phonons, is to chemically combine different elements within
the crystalline unit cell to maximize the electron-phonon coupling. This
led to the discovery of NbTi and Nb_33Sn,
to name just the most technologically relevant examples. Here, we
propose a radically different approach to transform a ‘pristine’
material into a better (meta-) superconductor by making use of modern
fabrication techniques: designing and engineering the electronic
properties of thin films via periodic patterning on the nanoscale. We
present a model calculation to explore the key effects of different
supercells that could be fabricated using nanofabrication or deliberate
lattice mismatch, and demonstrate that specific pattern will enhance the
coupling and the transition temperature. We also discuss how numerical
methods could predict the correct design parameters to improve
superconductivity in materials including Al, NbTi, and
MgB_22.
First-principles determination of the ultrahigh electrical and thermal conductivity in free-electron metals via pressure tuning the electron-phonon coupling factor
