Highly skewed current–phase relation in superconductor–topological insulator–superconductor Josephson junctions

Kayyalha, Morteza; Kazakov, Aleksandr; Miotkowski, Ireneusz; Khlebnikov, Sergei; Rokhinson, Leonid P.; Chen, Yong P.

doi:10.1038/s41535-020-0209-5

Title: Highly skewed current–phase relation in superconductor–topological insulator–superconductor Josephson junctions

Journal Article · Thu Jan 30 00:00:00 EST 2020 · npj Quantum Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-020-0209-5· OSTI ID:1801844

^[1]; Kazakov, Aleksandr ^[2]; Miotkowski, Ireneusz ^[2];

^[2]; Rokhinson, Leonid P. ^[3]; Chen, Yong P. ^[4]

Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Birck Nanotechnology Center; Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Birck Nanotechnology Center; Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute
Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Birck Nanotechnology Center; Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute; Tohoku Univ., Sendai (Japan). 5WPI-AIMR International Research Center on Materials Sciences; Aarhus Univ. (Denmark). Inst. of Physics and Astronomy. Villum Center for Dirac Materials

Three-dimensional topological insulators (TIs) in proximity with superconductors are expected to exhibit exotic phenomena, such as topological superconductivity (TSC) and Majorana-bound states (MBS), which may have applications in topological quantum computation. In superconductor–TI–superconductor Josephson junctions, the supercurrent versus the phase difference between the superconductors, referred to as the current–phase relation (CPR), reveals important information including the nature of the superconducting transport. Here, we study the induced superconductivity in gate-tunable Josephson junctions (JJs) made from topological insulator BiSbTeSe₂with superconducting Nb electrodes. We observe highly skewed (non-sinusoidal) CPR in these junctions. The critical current, or the magnitude of the CPR, increases with decreasing temperature down to the lowest accessible temperature (T ~ 20 mK), revealing the existence of low-energy modes in our junctions. The gate dependence shows that close to the Dirac point the CPR becomes less skewed, indicating the transport is more diffusive, most likely due to the presence of electron/hole puddles and charge inhomogeneity. Our experiments provide strong evidence that superconductivity is induced in the highly ballistic topological surface states (TSS) in our gate-tunable TI-based JJs. Furthermore, the measured CPR is in good agreement with the prediction of a model which calculates the phase-dependent eigenstate energies in our system, considering the finite width of the electrodes, as well as the TSS wave functions extending over the entire circumference of the TI.

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Research Organization:: Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0008630

OSTI ID:: 1801844

Journal Information:: npj Quantum Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 1; ISSN 2397-4648

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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