Paper has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of electronic components. In fact, paper is 10 000 times cheaper than crystalline silicon, motivating the research to integrate electronic materials on paper substrates. Among the different electronic materials, van der Waals materials are attracting the interest of the scientific community working on paper-based electronics because of the combination of high electrical performance and mechanical flexibility. Up to now, different methods have been developed to pattern conducting, semiconducting and insulating van der Waals materials on paper but the integration of superconductors remains elusive. Here, the deposition of NbSe2, an illustrative van der Waals superconductor, on standard copy paper is demonstrated. The deposited NbSe2 films on paper display superconducting properties (e.g. observation of Meissner effect and resistance drop to zero-resistance state when cooled down below its critical temperature) similar to those of bulk NbSe2.

We fabricated large-area atomically thin MoS₂ layers through the direct transformation of crystalline molybdenum trioxide (MoO₃) by sulfurization at relatively low temperatures. The obtained MoS₂ sheets are polycrystalline (~10-20 nm single-crystal domain size) with areas of up to 300 × 300 μm2, 2-4 layers in thickness and show a marked p-type behavior. The synthesized films are characterized by a combination of complementary techniques: Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and electronic transport measurements.

Many practical applications of high T_c superconductors involve layered materials and magnetic fields applied on an arbitrary direction with respect to the layers. When the anisotropy is very large, Cooper pair currents can circulate either within or perpendicular to the layers. Thus, tilted magnetic fields lead to intertwined lattices of Josephson and Abrikosov vortices, with quantized circulation across and within layers, respectively. Transport in such intertwined lattices has been studied in detail, but direct observation and manipulation of vortices remains challenging. Here we present magnetic force microscopy experiments in tilted magnetic fields in the extremely quasi-two dimensional superconductor Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈. We trigger Abrikosov vortex motion in between Josephson vortices, and find that Josephson vortices in different layers can be brought on top of each other. Our measurements suggest that intertwined lattices in tilted magnetic fields can be intrinsically easy to manipulate thanks to the mutual interaction between Abrikosov and Josephson vortices.