Kinetic inductance of few-layer NbSe2 in the two-dimensional limit
Abstract Van der Waals (vdW) superconductors remain superconducting down to the monolayer limit, enabling the exploration of emergent physical phenomena and functionality driven by reduced dimensionality. Here, we report the characterization of the kinetic inductance of atomically thin NbSe 2 , a two-dimensional van der Waals superconductor, using superconducting coplanar waveguides and microwave measurement techniques familiar to circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED). The kinetic inductance scales inversely with the number of NbSe 2 layers, reaching 1.2 nH/ □ in the monolayer limit. Furthermore, the measured kinetic inductance exhibits a thickness-dependent crossover from clean- to dirty-limit behavior, with enhanced dirty-limit contributions emerging in the ultra-thin regime. These effects are likely driven by increased surface scattering, multi-band superconductivity, and geometric confinement. Additionally, the self-Kerr nonlinearity of the NbSe 2 films ranges from K/2π = −0.006 to −14.7 Hz/photon, indicating its strong potential in applications requiring compact, nearly linear, high-inductance superconducting quantum devices and detectors. The fabrication and characterization techniques demonstrated here are extensible to the investigation of other two-dimensional superconductors.
Authors
- Terry P. Orlando
- Thomas Werkmeister (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1017-1181)
- Max Hays (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6241-1628)
- Ahmet Kemal Demir (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3251-9793)
- Philip Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8255-0086)
- Kyle Serniak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3469-9166)
- Daniel Rodan‐Legrain (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5345-7774)
- Thao Dinh
- Joel I-Jan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1811-8352)
- William D. Oliver (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8041-0824)
- Jeffrey A. Grover (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6835-8517)
- Kenji Watanabe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3701-8119)
- Mollie E. Schwartz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4406-8974)
- Pablo Jarillo‐Herrero (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8217-8213)
- Réouven Assouly (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9853-5972)
- Aranya Goswami (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5027-6780)
- M. Tanaka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1855-0620)
- Riccardo Comin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1069-9973)
- Bethany M. Niedzielski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8277-8064)
- Sameia Zaman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6161-962X)
- David Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0010-7823)
- Takashi Taniguchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1467-3105)
Institutions
- Harvard University (US)
- National Institute for Materials Science (JP)
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory (US)
- New York University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-07-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75672-8
- Primary Topic
- 2D Materials and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Schlumberger Foundation
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
- Fundación Rafael del Pino
- Office of Science
- Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
- U.S. Air Force
- Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Division of Materials Research
- Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology
- Army Research Office