2017/02/28 by Christopher Reeg, Dmitrii L. Maslov · 33 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Conductance #Coupling (piping) #Layer (electronics) #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Nanowire #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Proximity effect (electron beam lithography) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Quantum tunnelling #Superconductivity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.95.205439
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 95(20) (American Physical Society) · 16 pages, 13 figures
openalex publication_date 2017/05/30 · arxiv created 2017/05/31 · arxiv updated 2017/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We study the conductance of a junction between the normal and superconducting segments of a nanowire, both of which are subjected to spin-orbit coupling and an external magnetic field. We directly compare the transport properties of the nanowire assuming two different models for the superconducting segment: one where we put superconductivity by hand into the wire and one where superconductivity is induced through a tunneling junction with a bulk s-wave superconductor. While these two models are equivalent at low energies and at weak coupling between the nanowire and the superconductor, we show that there are several interesting qualitative differences away from these two limits. In particular, the tunneling model introduces an additional conductance peak at the energy corresponding to the bulk gap of the parent superconductor. By employing a combination of analytical methods at zero temperature and numerical methods at finite temperature, we show that the tunneling model of the proximity effect reproduces many more of the qualitative features that are seen experimentally in such a nanowire system.