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Metal intercalation to graphite produces various types of superconductors. The highest superconducting transition temperature Tc (onset temperature, Tconset, of 11.5 K) was found in Ca intercalated graphite, denoted CaC6. Tconset increased up to 15.1 K at 7.5 GPa, implying a positive pressure dependence. However, no new metal-intercalated graphite superconductors with Tconset higher than 11.5 K at ambient pressure have so far been reported. To search for new graphite superconductors, we successfully synthesized binary-element-intercalated graphite, CaxK1−xCy. Their structure resembles that of KC8. Tc increased continuously with increasing x. Furthermore, the pressure dependence of Tc in Ca0.6K0.4C8 was investigated over a wide pressure range from 0–43 GPa. Tc (= 9.6 K at 0 GPa) increased to 11.6 K at 3.3 GPa, and decreased to 2.0 K at 41 GPa. This behavior is similar to that of CaC6, albeit with a lower maximum Tc. X-ray diffraction patterns were measured under high pressures of 0–24 GPa, and suggest a structural transition at 15 GPa. Evidence is given for superconducting graphite involving binary metal intercalation.

‘Aromatic hydrocarbon’ implies an organic molecule that satisfies the (4 n + 2) π-electron rule and consists of benzene rings. Doping solid aromatic hydrocarbons with metals provides the superconductivity. The first discovery of such superconductivity was made for K-doped picene (K x picene, five benzene rings). Its superconducting transition temperatures ( T c ’s) were 7 and 18 K. Recently, we found a new superconducting K x picene phase with a T c as high as 14 K, so we now know that K x picene possesses multiple superconducting phases. Besides K x picene, we discovered new superconductors such as Rb x picene and Ca x picene. A most serious problem is that the shielding fraction is ⩽15% for K x picene and Rb x picene, and it is often ∼1% for other superconductors. Such low shielding fractions have made it difficult to determine the crystal structures of superconducting phases. Nevertheless, many research groups have expended a great deal of effort to make high quality hydrocarbon superconductors in the five years since the discovery of hydrocarbon superconductivity. At the present stage, superconductivity is observed in certain metal-doped aromatic hydrocarbons (picene, phenanthrene and dibenzopentacene), but the shielding fraction remains stubbornly low. The highest priority research area is to prepare aromatic superconductors with a high superconducting volume-fraction. Despite these difficulties, aromatic superconductivity is still a core research target and presents interesting and potentially breakthrough challenges, such as the positive pressure dependence of T c that is clearly observed in some phases of aromatic hydrocarbon superconductors, suggesting behavior not explained by the standard BCS picture of superconductivity. In this article, we describe the present status of this research field, and discuss its future prospects.

Transistor characteristics and O2 gas sensing properties are investigated for picene thin film field-effect transistors (FETs) with ZrO2, Ta2O5, HfO2 and BaxSr1−xTiO3 (x = 0.4). The low-voltage operation is achieved using the above oxides with high gate dielectric constant, contrary to SiO2 gate dielectric. The O2 gas sensing is achieved at 11 s intervals without any bias stress by an application of pulse drain and gate voltages (VD and VG), in contrast to previous result in which the O2 gas sensing was performed at least at 1 h step because of bias stress effect. The actual O2 sensing-speed in the picene thin film FET was ∼10 s for 3.8 Torr O2, and the O2 sensing limit was concluded to be 0.15–0.38 Torr. Furthermore, it has been found that the O2 sensing properties are observed only under irradiation of light with wavelength below 400 nm. From the result, we have presented two scenarios for O2 sensing mechanism in picene thin film FET.

Thin film transistors (TFTs) with ionic liquid gate dielectrics, [1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium][bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide] (emim[TFSI]) and [1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium][hexafluorophosphate] (bmim[PF 6 ]), are fabricated with thin films of one dimensional (1D) hydrocarbon, [7]phenacene. P-channel characteristics are observed for [7]phenacene TFTs with both ionic liquids by use of platinum electrode. The field-effect mobility μ for [7]phenacene TFT with bmim[PF 6 ] was recorded to be 0.28 cm 2 V −1 s −1 . The value of absolute threshold voltage, | V TH |, was less than 2.5 V, showing low-voltage operation. The accumulation of hole in the [7]phenacene TFTs with ionic liquids was confirmed from the voltage or time dependence of capacitance in metal–insulator-semiconductor structure, which shows that these TFTs operate electrochemically and the carriers are accumulated in the whole of [7]phenacene thin films.

We report experimental observation of the proximity-induced supercurrent in superconductor–multilayer graphene–superconductor junctions. We find that the supercurrent is a linearly decreasing function of the junction length (separation of the superconducting electrodes), which is quite different from the usual behavior of exponential dependence. We suggest that this behavior originates from the intrinsic large contact resistance between the multilayer and the superconducting electrodes.

Graphene is a single layer of graphite. Graphene is expected to exhibit the relativistic Josephson effects, when ballistic transport is realized in it. Here, we report a method to fabricate ultrashort graphene Josephson junctions with length as short as several tens of nm, which is much shorter than the estimated mean free path of the graphene film after the junction fabrication processes.

We experimentally studied current–voltage characteristics of superconductor/thin graphite film/superconductor Josephson junctions. A reentrant behavior in the differential conductance was observed at low bias voltages just above the structure due to supercurrent. The gate voltage dependence of the conductance peak shows that the origin of the reentrant behavior is different from that for the conventional reentrant behavior seen in a disordered normal metal coupled to a superconductor.

We experimentally investigated electrical transport in thin graphite films about 10 nm thick connected to superconducting leads. Proximity-induced superconductivity was observed and the critical supercurrent strongly depends on the gate voltage. From the maximum-to-minimum ratios of the critical supercurrent and the normal state resistance, we conclude that the major part of the supercurrent flows in a few graphene layers close to the gate electrode.

Superconducting proximity effects in a ferromagnetic metal are directly observed by means of 59 Co NMR in Co/Al bilayers. Below the superconducting transition temperature, the resonant frequency decreases and the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate divided by temperature, 1/T1T, increases. These results indicate the reduction of magnetic moment in the Co layer. We discuss the spatial variation of the local magnetic moment and its temperature dependence by analyzing the resonance line shapes.