The Pluronics family of block copolymers (BCPs) are ubiquitous in the creation of polymer nanocomposites with mesoscale order, as well as in the soft templating of metal oxides such as SBA-15. It has remained a longstanding challenge, however, to extend Pluronics self-assembly based methods to non-oxides. In this work we accomplish this goal by carefully exploring different processing routes to create highly crystalline, hexagonally mesoporous niobium nitride-type materials termed CUS-86. Mesoscale structural properties such as pore spacing, diameter, and wall thickness are shown to be tunable via different synthesis parameters. Depending on thermal processing, CUS-86 enters a superconducting state below 8 K and an external field of 5 T. Recent work has established the vast opportunity space for polymer solution-based approaches to quantum metamaterials, e.g. in the form of superconductors whose properties are governed not only by their atomic lattice, but also their mesostructure. CUS-86 represents a new class of such tunable and ordered mesoporous superconductors made with the diverse and widely available Pluronics family of BCPs. We expect this work will provide a large community of researchers with access to the emerging field of quantum metamaterials, and play an important role in the exploration of their mesostructure-property relationships.

Pluronics-based nanomaterials for self-assembled mesoporous superconductors

ACS Spring 2022

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