Superconducting 2D cuprate with a single CuO2 plane

· Nature

12 min read Original article ↗

Data availability

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.

References

  1. Novoselov, K. S. et al. Two-dimensional gas of massless Dirac fermions in graphene. Nature 438, 197–200 (2005).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Zhang, Y., Tan, Y., Stormer, H. L. & Kim, P. Experimental observation of the quantum Hall effect and Berry’s phase in graphene. Nature 438, 201–204 (2005).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Yu, Y. et al. High-temperature superconductivity in monolayer Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Nature 575, 156–163 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Bednorz, J. G. & Müller, K. A. Possible high Tc superconductivity in the Ba–La–Cu–O system. Z. Phys. B 64, 189–193 (1986).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kamihara, Y., Watanabe, T., Hirano, M. & Hosono, H. Iron-based layered superconductor La[O1xFx]FeAs (x = 0.05–0.12) with Tc = 26 K. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130, 3296–3297 (2008).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Li, D. et al. Superconductivity in an infinite-layer nickelate. Nature 572, 624–627 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Mermin, N. D. & Wagner, H. Absence of ferromagnetism or antiferromagnetism in one-or two-dimensional isotropic Heisenberg models. Phys. Rev. Lett. 17, 1133 (1966).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Kosterlitz, J. M. & Thouless, D. J. Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems. J. Phys. C 6, 1181 (1973).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Jiang, D. et al. High-Tc superconductivity in ultrathin Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x down to half-unit-cell thickness by protection with graphene. Nat. Commun. 5, 5708 (2014).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Sterpetti, E., Biscaras, J., Erb, A. & Shukla, A. Comprehensive phase diagram of two-dimensional space charge doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x. Nat. Commun. 8, 2060 (2017).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Liao, M. et al. Superconductor–insulator transitions in exfoliated Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ flakes. Nano Lett. 18, 5660–5665 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Zhao, S. F. et al. Sign-reversing Hall effect in atomically thin high-temperature Bi2.1Sr1.9CaCu2.0O8+δ superconductors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 247001 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Pickett, W. E. Electronic structure of the high-temperature oxide superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 61, 433 (1989).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Feng, D. L. et al. Bilayer splitting in the electronic structure of heavily overdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5550 (2001).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Chuang, Y. et al. Doubling of the bands in overdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ: evidence for c-axis bilayer coupling. Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 117002 (2001).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Bogdanov, P. V. et al. Photoemission study of Pb doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8: a Fermi surface picture. Phys. Rev. B 64, 180505 (2001).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Luo, X. et al. Electronic origin of high superconducting critical temperature in trilayer cuprates. Nat. Phys. 19, 1841–1847 (2023).

  18. Fujita, K. et al. Effect of disorder outside the CuO2 planes on Tc of copper oxide superconductors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 97006 (2005).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Boyer, M. C. et al. Imaging the two gaps of the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CuO6+x. Nat. Phys. 3, 802–806 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. He, Y. et al. Fermi surface and pseudogap evolution in a cuprate superconductor. Science 344, 608–611 (2014).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Webb, T. A. et al. Density wave probes cuprate quantum phase transition. Phys. Rev. X 9, 21021 (2019).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Bollinger, A. T. et al. Superconductor–insulator transition in La2xSrxCuO4 at the pair quantum resistance. Nature 472, 458–460 (2011).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Leng, X. et al. Electrostatic control of the evolution from a superconducting phase to an insulating phase in ultrathin YBa2Cu3O7x films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 27001 (2011).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  24. Konstantinovi C, Z., Li, Z. Z. & Raffy, H. Temperature dependence of the Hall effect in single-layer and bilayer Bi2Sr2Can−1CunOy thin films at various oxygen contents. Phys. Rev. B 62, R11989 (2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Kleiner, R. & Müller, P. Intrinsic Josephson effects in high-Tc superconductors. Phys. Rev. B 49, 1327 (1994).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Wan, Y. M., Hebboul, S. E., Harris, D. C. & Garland, J. C. Interlayer Josephson coupling of thermally excited vortices in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8y. Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 157 (1993).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Locquet, J. et al. Doubling the critical temperature of La1. 9Sr0. 1CuO4 using epitaxial strain. Nature 394, 453–456 (1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Fratini, M. et al. Scale-free structural organization of oxygen interstitials in La2CuO4+y. Nature 466, 841–844 (2010).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Poccia, N. et al. Spatially correlated incommensurate lattice modulations in an atomically thin high-temperature Bi2.1Sr1.9CaCu2.0O8+y superconductor. Phys. Rev. Mater. 4, 114007 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Sacépé, B., Feigel Man, M. & Klapwijk, T. M. Quantum breakdown of superconductivity in low-dimensional materials. Nat. Phys. 16, 734–746 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Lin, Y., Nelson, J. & Goldman, A. M. Superconductivity of very thin films: the superconductor–insulator transition. Physica C 514, 130–141 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Sondhi, S. L., Girvin, S. M., Carini, J. P. & Shahar, D. Continuous quantum phase transitions. Rev. Mod. Phys. 69, 315 (1997).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  33. Garcia-Barriocanal, J. et al. Electronically driven superconductor–insulator transition in electrostatically doped La2CuO4+δ thin films. Phys. Rev. B 87, 24509 (2013).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  34. Xing, Y. et al. Quantum Griffiths singularity of superconductor–metal transition in Ga thin films. Science 350, 542–545 (2015).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Phillabaum, B., Carlson, E. W. & Dahmen, K. A. Spatial complexity due to bulk electronic nematicity in a superconducting underdoped cuprate. Nat. Commun. 3, 915 (2012).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  36. Del Maestro, A., Rosenow, B., M U Ller, M. & Sachdev, S. Infinite randomness fixed point of the superconductor–metal quantum phase transition. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 35701 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Hoyos, J. A., Kotabage, C. & Vojta, T. Effects of dissipation on a quantum critical point with disorder. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 230601 (2007).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Vojta, T., Farquhar, A. & Mast, J. Infinite-randomness critical point in the two-dimensional disordered contact process. Phys. Rev. E 79, 11111 (2009).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  39. Wang, Z., Liu, Y., Ji, C. & Wang, J. Quantum phase transitions in two-dimensional superconductors: a review on recent experimental progress. Rep. Prog. Phys. 87, 14502 (2024).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  40. Saito, Y., Nojima, T. & Iwasa, Y. Highly crystalline 2D superconductors. Nat. Rev. Mater. 2, 16094 (2017).

  41. Liu, S. et al. Three-dimensional quantum Griffiths singularity in bulk iron-pnictide superconductors. Natl Sci. Rev. 11, nwae220 (2024).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  42. Zhao, Q. et al. Isotropic quantum Griffiths singularity in Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 infinite-layer superconducting thin films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 36003 (2024).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Liu, Y. et al. Anomalous quantum Griffiths singularity in ultrathin crystalline lead films. Nat. Commun. 10, 3633 (2019).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  44. Gotlieb, K. et al. Revealing hidden spin-momentum locking in a high-temperature cuprate superconductor. Science 362, 1271–1275 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Kapitulnik, A., Kivelson, S. A. & Spivak, B. Colloquium: anomalous metals: failed superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 91, 11002 (2019).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  46. Zhang, X., Palevski, A. & Kapitulnik, A. Anomalous metals: from “failed superconductor” to “failed insulator”. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2092471177 (2022).

    Google Scholar 

  47. Fisher, M. P. Quantum phase transitions in disordered two-dimensional superconductors. Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 923 (1990).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  48. Phillips, P. & Dalidovich, D. The elusive Bose metal. Science 302, 243–247 (2003).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Das, D. & Doniach, S. Bose metal: gauge-field fluctuations and scaling for field-tuned quantum phase transitions. Phys. Rev. B 64, 134511 (2001).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  50. Li, L. et al. Anomalous quantum metal in a 2D crystalline superconductor with electronic phase nonuniformity. Nano Lett. 19, 4126–4133 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Ye, P., Tian, C., Qi, X. & Weng, Z. Confinement-deconfinement interplay in quantum phases of doped Mott insulators. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 147002 (2011).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Kou, S. & Weng, Z. Topological gauge structure and phase diagram for weakly doped antiferromagnets. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 157003 (2003).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  53. Spivak, B., Oreto, P. & Kivelson, S. A. Theory of quantum metal to superconductor transitions in highly conducting systems. Phys. Rev. B 77, 214523 (2008).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  54. Kohsaka, Y. et al. An intrinsic bond-centered electronic glass with unidirectional domains in underdoped cuprates. Science 315, 1380–1385 (2007).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  55. Fujita, K. et al. Spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy studies of electronic structure in the superconducting and pseudogap phases of cuprate high-Tc superconductors. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 81, 11005 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Fujita, K. et al. Simultaneous transitions in cuprate momentum-space topology and electronic symmetry breaking. Science 344, 612–616 (2014).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  57. McElroy, K. et al. Relating atomic-scale electronic phenomena to wave-like quasiparticle states in superconducting Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Nature 422, 592–596 (2003).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  58. Tamir, I. et al. Sensitivity of the superconducting state in thin films. Sci. Adv. 5, eaau3826 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank D.-H. Lee, X. Lin, Y. Qi, J. Wang and C. Tang for helpful discussions. We also thank H. Eisaki, G. D. Gu, A. Haug, Z. Zhang, J. Shao and Y. Zhao for their help with the experiment. Part of the sample fabrication was conducted at Nano-fabrication Laboratory at Fudan University.

Funding

H.L., Y.Y., L.M., W.R. and Y.Z. acknowledge support from National Key R&D Program of China (grant number 2022YFA1403301), Fundamental and Interdisciplinary Disciplines Breakthrough Plan of the Ministry of Education of China (grant number JYB2025XDXM120), National Science Foundation of China (grant number 12350404), Quantum Science and Technology-National Science and Technology Major Project (grant number 2024ZD0300104), and Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission (grant numbers 23JC1400600 and 2019SHZDZX01). W.R. acknowledges additional support from National Science Foundation of China (grant number 12274087) Shanghai Science and Technology Development Funds (grant number 22QA1400600). Y.Y. acknowledges addtional support from Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Project (grant number 25DZ3008100). D. Song acknowledges support from the Max Planck-UBC-UTokyo Centre for Quantum Materials and the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Quantum Materials and Future Technologies. P.C. acknowledges support from National Key R&D Program of China (grant number 2022YFA1403102), Quantum Science and Technology-National Science and Technology Major Project (grant number 2021ZD0302502), National Science Foundation of China (grant number 12074424), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China. Y.C, L.Z. and X.Z. acknowledge support from National Science Foundation of China (grant number 11888101). Z.W. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation of China (grant number 12347107) and National Key R&D Program of China (grant number 2021YFA1402101). X.H.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 11888101 and 11534010), the National Key R&D Program of China (grant numbers 2017YFA0303001 and 2016YFA0300201), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number XDB25000000) and the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS (grant number QYZDY-SSW-SLH021). This work has been supported by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Hengsheng Luo, Yijun Yu, Liguo Ma, Peng Cai, Jian Shen, Wei Ruan & Yuanbo Zhang

  2. Institute for Nanoelectronic Devices and Quantum Computing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Hengsheng Luo, Jian Shen, Wei Ruan & Yuanbo Zhang

  3. Shanghai Branch, Hefei National Laboratory, Shanghai, China

    Hengsheng Luo, Jian Shen, Wei Ruan & Yuanbo Zhang

  4. Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Hengsheng Luo, Jian Shen, Wei Ruan & Yuanbo Zhang

  5. Zhangjiang Fudan International Innovation Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Hengsheng Luo, Jian Shen, Wei Ruan & Yuanbo Zhang

  6. Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Dongjoon Song

  7. Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Micro-nano Quantum Chips and Quantum Control, and School of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Liguo Ma

  8. School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Quantum State Construction and Manipulation (Ministry of Education), Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Peng Cai

  9. Tsung-Dao Lee Institute & School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Ruidan Zhong

  10. National Laboratory for Superconductivity, Beijing National undefinedoratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yiwen Chen, Lin Zhao & Xingjiang Zhou

  11. Department of Condensed Matter Physics, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Dan Shahar

  12. Institute for Advanced Study and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Zhengyu Weng

  13. Key Laboratory of Strongly Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Xian Hui Chen

  14. New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Yuanbo Zhang

Authors

  1. Hengsheng Luo
  2. Dongjoon Song
  3. Yijun Yu
  4. Liguo Ma
  5. Peng Cai
  6. Ruidan Zhong
  7. Yiwen Chen
  8. Lin Zhao
  9. Jian Shen
  10. Dan Shahar
  11. Xingjiang Zhou
  12. Zhengyu Weng
  13. Xian Hui Chen
  14. Wei Ruan
  15. Yuanbo Zhang

Contributions

Y.Z., W.R., X.H.C. and J.S. supervised the project. D. Song, R.Z., Y.C., L.Z. and X.Z. synthesized the bulk crystals. H.L., L.M. and P.C. fabricated STM devices and performed STM measurements. H.L. and Y.Y. fabricated transport devices. H.L. performed transport measurement. D. Shahar provided InOx thin films. H.L., Y.Y., Z.W., W.R. and Y.Z. analysed the data and wrote the paper with input from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xian Hui Chen, Wei Ruan or Yuanbo Zhang.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature thanks Jianfeng Ge, Nicola Poccia and Boris Spivak for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Luo, H., Song, D., Yu, Y. et al. Superconducting 2D cuprate with a single CuO2 plane. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10857-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10857-1