Can palladates be the new oxide superconductors family?

Superconductivity, characterized by zero electrical resistance below a critical temperature and magnetic flux expulsion phenomena, has broad implications for efficient energy transmission, quantum computing, and applications such as magnetic imaging in medicine. Given their high transition temperatures, ceramic superconductors based on copper oxides (cuprates) have been extensively investigated in the last decades. Current efforts focus on understanding how these unusual (unconventional) superconductors work and identifying new materials with optimized superconducting properties. Using the insights gained from theoretical and experimental research on cuprates, we can define a set of material requirements that should be used as design principles for developing new oxide superconductors. Still, it took more than 30 years of research after discovering cuprates to find that layered nickelates (based on Ni, left side periodic table neighbour of Cu) are also superconductors. Today, five years after this finding, a whole family of nickelate superconductors exists, and it is continuously expanding. The nickelate superconductors include the first discovered doped infinite-layer compounds (i.e. Nd1-xSrxNiO2) but also other reduced layered phases or bulk nickelate crystals under high pressure. Based on the design principles outlined above, the common threads between nickelates and cuprates indicate that those are good strategies to follow in the quest for materials discovery. Consequently, we can now, more than ever, wonder: Do other novel transition metal oxide families of superconductors exist? Looking at the periodic table, Pd is located close to Cu and below Ni. Following the same design approach as for nickelates, reducing doped RPdO3 (R=rare earth element) perovskite films to the doped infinite-layer RPdO2 should lead to an electronic structure prone to display superconductivity. The project aims to synthesize and investigate novel quantum materials consisting of palladium-based oxide heterostructures to discover a new family of oxide superconductors. Unlocking such a new family of transitionmetal superconductorscanrevolutionize our understanding ofunconventional superconductors. We also notice that the synthesis of the Pd-based perovskite-like oxide heterostructures is noteworthy in its own right, as their electronic properties have yet to be investigated.