Superconducting pairing of topological surface states in bismuth selenide films on niobium

Flötotto, David; Ota, Yuichi; Bai, Yang; Zhang, Can; Okazaki, Kozo; Tsuzuki, Akihiro; Hashimoto, Takahiro; Eckstein, James N.; Shin, Shik; Chiang, Tai-Chang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aar7214

Title: Superconducting pairing of topological surface states in bismuth selenide films on niobium

Journal Article · 27 April 2018 · Science Advances

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar7214 · OSTI ID:1499947

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Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)
Univ. of Tokyo (Japan)

A topological insulator film coupled to a simple isotropic s-wave superconductor substrate can foster helical pairing of the Dirac fermions associated with the topological surface states. Experimental realization of such a system is exceedingly difficult, however using a novel “flip-chip” technique, we have prepared single-crystalline Bi₂Se₃ films with predetermined thicknesses in terms of quintuple layers (QLs) on top of Nb substrates fresh from in situ cleavage. Our angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements of the film surface disclose superconducting gaps and coherence peaks of similar magnitude for both the topological surface states and bulk states. The ARPES spectral map as a function of temperature and film thickness up to 10 QLs reveals key characteristics relevant to the mechanism of coupling between the topological surface states and the superconducting Nb substrate; the effective coupling length is found to be much larger than the decay length of the topological surface states.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-07ER46383; AC02-07CH11358

OSTI ID:: 1499947

Journal Information:: Science Advances, Vol. 4, Issue 4; ISSN 2375-2548

Publisher:: AAASCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 31 works

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Conversion of a conventional superconductor into a topological superconductor by topological proximity effect Trang, C. X.; Shimamura, N.; Nakayama, K. Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13946-0	journal	January 2020
Conversion of a conventional superconductor into a topological superconductor by topological proximity effect Trang, C. X.; Shimamura, N.; Nakayama, K. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2003.04562	text	January 2020
Conversion of a conventional superconductor into a topological superconductor by topological proximity effect Trang, C. X.; Shimamura, N.; Nakayama, K. Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13946-0	journal	January 2020