Highly oriented, free-standing, superconducting NbN films growth on chemical vapor deposited graphene

NbN films are grown on chemical vapor deposited graphene using dc magnetron sputtering. The orientation and transition temperature of the deposited films is studied as a function of substrate temperature. A superconducting transition temperature of 14 K is obtained for highly oriented (111) films grown at substrate temperature of 150 °C, which is comparable to epitaxial films grown on MgO and sapphire substrates. These films show a considerably high upper critical field of ∼33 T. In addition, we demonstrate a process for obtaining flexible, free-standing NbN films by delaminating graphene from the substrate using a simple wet etching technique. These free-standing NbN layers can be transferred to any substrate, potentially enabling a range of novel superconducting thin-film applications.