title: Superconducting Continuous Graphene Fibers via Calcium Intercalation.
abstract: Superconductors are important materials in the field of low-temperature magnet applications and long-distance electrical power transmission systems. Besides metal-based superconducting materials, carbon-based superconductors have attracted considerable attention in recent years. Up to now, five allotropes of carbon, including diamond, graphite, C60, CNTs, and graphene, have been reported to show superconducting behavior. However, most of the carbon-based superconductors are limited to small size and discontinuous phases, which inevitably hinders further application in macroscopic form. Therefore, it raises a question of whether continuously carbon-based superconducting wires could be accessed, which is of vital importance from viewpoints of fundamental research and practical application. Here, inspired by superconducting graphene, we successfully fabricated flexible graphene-based superconducting fibers via a well-established calcium (Ca) intercalation strategy. The resultant Ca-intercalated graphene fiber (Ca-GF) shows a superconducting transition at ∼11 K, which is almost 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of early reported alkali metal intercalated graphite and comparable to that of commercial superconducting NbTi wire. The combination of lightness and easy scalability makes Ca-GF highly promising as a lightweight superconducting wire.
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Adsorption and Separation Materials & Technologies of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University , 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yingjun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics and Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Adsorption and Separation Materials & Technologies of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University , 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Adsorption and Separation Materials & Technologies of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University , 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jiabin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics and Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Genfu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Adsorption and Separation Materials & Technologies of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University , 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics and Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Mianqi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Adsorption and Separation Materials & Technologies of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University , 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gao
keywords: Ca intercalation; carbon-based superconductor; graphene; graphene fiber; superconducting wire; wet-spinning