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arXiv · 1210.4320

Induced superconductivity in the three-dimensional topological insulator HgTe

Luis Maier·Jeroen B. Oostinga·Daniel Knott·Christoph Bruene·Pauli Virtanen·Grigory Tkachov·Ewelina M. Hankiewicz·Charles Gould·Hartmut Buhmann·Laurens W. Molenkamp
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Abstract

A strained and undoped HgTe layer is a three-dimensional topological insulator, in which electronic transport occurs dominantly through its surface states. In this Letter, we present transport measurements on HgTe-based Josephson junctions with Nb as superconductor. Although the Nb-HgTe interfaces have a low transparency, we observe a strong zero-bias anomaly in the differential resistance measurements. This anomaly originates from proximity-induced superconductivity in the HgTe surface states. In the most transparent junction, we observe periodic oscillations of the differential resistance as function of an applied magnetic field, which correspond to a Fraunhofer-like pattern. This unambiguously shows that a precursor of the Josephson effect occurs in the topological surface states of HgTe.

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Luis Maier, Jeroen B. Oostinga, Daniel Knott, Christoph Bruene, Pauli Virtanen, Grigory Tkachov, Ewelina M. Hankiewicz, Charles Gould, Hartmut Buhmann, Laurens W. Molenkamp. 2012-10-16. Induced superconductivity in the three-dimensional topological insulator HgTe. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.109.186806

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