September 10, 2021 | Sebastian The Smalley-Curl Institute Outstanding Poster Award has been assigned to Nicola Paradiso (University of Regensburg) at the NT21 conference (Rice University), for the poster “Robust supercurrent and phase slip centers in a ballistic carbon nanotube embedded into a van der Waals heterostructure”. The work describe the first hybrid 1D/2D van der Waals heterostructure. The Regensburg team developed techniques for picking-up and contact carbon nanotubes precisely as if it were a 2D material. This made possible to stack it with NbSe2 and hBN. The few-atomic-layer thick NbSe2 induces by proximity superconductivity in the carbon nanotubes. A clear signature of the induced superconductivity is the giant conductance, two orders of magnitude larger than the quantum limit for 1D conductors. Furthermore, clear current-driven resistance peaks are observed: these are due to the nucleation of phase slip centers within the carbon nanotube, another clear indication of 1D superconductivity inherited from the NbSe2 parent superconductor