We report the observation of proximity effect in measurements performed on
highly oriented pyrolitic graphite (HOPG) samples when electrical current is
injected through the superconducting electrodes placed on the sample surface
few millimeters apart from each other. Such anomalously large effect is
surprising, as proximity-induced superconducting features in normal conductors
hardly surpass few micrometers. The obtained results can be consistently
understood, however, considering pre-existing superconducting correlations in
graphite, supported by recent observations of the intrinsic global
superconductivity in twisted bi- and multi-layer graphenes.Comment: 5 figure
