2014/11/30 by Won Chang, W. Chang, S. M. Albrecht +9 · 2 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #Epitaxy #Graphene research and applications #Materials science #Mesoscopic physics #Nanotechnology #Nanowire #Optoelectronics #Physics #Quantum tunnelling #Semiconductor #Superconductivity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nnano.2014.306
published as Nature Nanotechnology 10, 232 (2015) · Combined text and supplementary information, Nature Nanotechnology (2015)
openalex publication_date 2015/01/09 · arxiv created 2015/01/24 · arxiv updated 2015/05/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Many present and future applications of superconductivity would benefit from electrostatic control of carrier density and tunneling rates, the hallmark of semiconductor devices. One particularly exciting application is the realization of topological superconductivity as a basis for quantum information processing. Proposals in this direction based on proximity effect in semiconductor nanowires are appealing because the key ingredients are currently in hand. However, previous instances of proximitized semiconductors show significant tunneling conductance below the superconducting gap, suggesting a continuum of subgap states---a situation that nullifies topological protection. Here, we report a hard superconducting gap induced by proximity effect in a semiconductor, using epitaxial Al-InAs superconductor-semiconductor nanowires. The hard gap, along with favorable material properties and gate-tunability, makes this new hybrid system attractive for a number of applications, as well as fundamental studies of mesoscopic superconductivity.