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Gapless Andreev bound states in the quantum spin Hall insulator HgTe

Nature Nanotechnology volume 12, pages 137–143 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

In recent years, Majorana physics has attracted considerable attention because of exotic new phenomena and its prospects for fault-tolerant topological quantum computation. To this end, one needs to engineer the interplay between superconductivity and electronic properties in a topological insulator, but experimental work remains scarce and ambiguous. Here, we report experimental evidence for topological superconductivity induced in a HgTe quantum well, a 2D topological insulator that exhibits the quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect. The a.c. Josephson effect demonstrates that the supercurrent has a 4π periodicity in the superconducting phase difference, as indicated by a doubling of the voltage step for multiple Shapiro steps. In addition, this response like that of a superconducting quantum interference device to a perpendicular magnetic field shows that the 4π-periodic supercurrent originates from states located on the edges of the junction. Both features appear strongest towards the QSH regime, and thus provide evidence for induced topological superconductivity in the QSH edge states.

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Figure 1: Physics in a topological Josephson junction.
Figure 2: Experimental realization of a topological Josephson junction.
Figure 3: Response to an RF excitation.
Figure 4: Shapiro response of a junction on a trivial quantum well.
Figure 5: Response of the critical current to a magnetic field.

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Acknowledgements

We thank V. Hock and L. Maier for technical assistance and acknowledge S. Tarucha, L. Glazman, Y. Peng, F. von Oppen, E.M. Hankiewicz, G. Tkachov and B. Trauzettel for enlightening discussions. This work is supported by the German Research Foundation (Leibniz Program, DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 1170 ‘Tocotronics’ and DFG-Schwerpunktprogramme 1666), the Elitenetzwerk Bayern program Topologische Isolatoren. R.S.D. acknowledges support from Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research A (No. 16H02204) and Young Scientists B (No. 26790008). T.M.K. is financially supported by the European Research Council Advanced Grant No.339306 (METIQUM). E.B., T.M.K. and L.W.M. thank the Alexander von Humboldt foundation for its support.

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  1. Erwann Bocquillon, Russell S. Deacon and Jonas Wiedenmann: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physikalisches Institut (EP3), Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, Würzburg, D-97074, Germany

    Erwann Bocquillon, Jonas Wiedenmann, Philipp Leubner, Christoph Brüne, Hartmut Buhmann & Laurens W. Molenkamp

  2. Advanced Device Laboratory, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, 351-0198, Saitama, Japan

    Russell S. Deacon & Koji Ishibashi

  3. Center for Emergent Matter Science, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, 351-0198, Saitama, Japan

    Russell S. Deacon & Koji Ishibashi

  4. Faculty of Applied Sciences, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, Delft, 2628 CJ, The Netherlands

    Teunis M. Klapwijk

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  1. Erwann Bocquillon
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Contributions

E.B., R.S.D., J.W., T.M.K., K.I., C.B., H.B. and L.W.M. conceived the experiments. P.L. and C.B. grew the material, and contributed material analysis. J.W. prepared the samples, with inputs from E.B., and R.S.D. E.B. and J.W. performed the measurements and the analysis. All the authors contributed to analysing and interpreting the data, and to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Erwann Bocquillon.

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Bocquillon, E., Deacon, R., Wiedenmann, J. et al. Gapless Andreev bound states in the quantum spin Hall insulator HgTe. Nature Nanotech 12, 137–143 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.159

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