New Journal of Physics (Jan 2018)
Electric field tunable superconductor-semiconductor coupling in Majorana nanowires
- Michiel W A de Moor,
- Jouri D S Bommer,
- Di Xu,
- Georg W Winkler,
- Andrey E Antipov,
- Arno Bargerbos,
- Guanzhong Wang,
- Nick van Loo,
- Roy L M Op het Veld,
- Sasa Gazibegovic,
- Diana Car,
- John A Logan,
- Mihir Pendharkar,
- Joon Sue Lee,
- Erik P A M Bakkers,
- Chris J Palmstrøm,
- Roman M Lutchyn,
- Leo P Kouwenhoven,
- Hao Zhang
Affiliations
- Michiel W A de Moor
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Jouri D S Bommer
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Di Xu
- ORCiD
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Georg W Winkler
- Station Q, Microsoft Research , Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6105, United States of America
- Andrey E Antipov
- Station Q, Microsoft Research , Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6105, United States of America
- Arno Bargerbos
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Guanzhong Wang
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Nick van Loo
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Roy L M Op het Veld
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands; Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology , 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
- Sasa Gazibegovic
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands; Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology , 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
- Diana Car
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands; Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology , 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
- John A Logan
- Materials Department, University of California , Santa Barbara, CA 93106, United States of America
- Mihir Pendharkar
- ORCiD
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California , Santa Barbara, CA 93106, United States of America
- Joon Sue Lee
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California , Santa Barbara, CA 93106, United States of America
- Erik P A M Bakkers
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands; Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology , 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
- Chris J Palmstrøm
- Materials Department, University of California , Santa Barbara, CA 93106, United States of America; Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California , Santa Barbara, CA 93106, United States of America
- Roman M Lutchyn
- Station Q, Microsoft Research , Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6105, United States of America
- Leo P Kouwenhoven
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands; Microsoft Station Q at Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- Hao Zhang
- ORCiD
- QuTech and Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology , 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aae61d
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 20,
no. 10
p. 103049
Abstract
We study the effect of external electric fields on superconductor-semiconductor coupling by measuring the electron transport in InSb semiconductor nanowires coupled to an epitaxially grown Al superconductor. We find that the gate voltage induced electric fields can greatly modify the coupling strength, which has consequences for the proximity induced superconducting gap, effective g -factor, and spin–orbit coupling, which all play a key role in understanding Majorana physics. We further show that level repulsion due to spin–orbit coupling in a finite size system can lead to seemingly stable zero bias conductance peaks, which mimic the behavior of Majorana zero modes. Our results improve the understanding of realistic Majorana nanowire systems.
Keywords
