arXiv subjects

Kaushini Wickramasinghe

Publications and source records attributed to Kaushini Wickramasinghe.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Magnetic interactions and origin of high Curie temperatures in high Mn content (MnSb2Te4)x(Sb2Te3)1-x quantum materials

Understanding the magnetic interactions that promote high TC in topological quantum materials is essential to effectively design materials whose magnetic configuration persists at high temperatures and are thus practical to integrate into commercial spintronic devices. Here we provide evidence of the origin of the high TC observed in mixed Mn1+ySb2-yTe4 septuple layers and Sb2-yMnyTe3 quintuple layer structures. Analysis of the quintuple layer/septuple layer structures explored their magnetic behavior through different models of Mn-incorporation in the crystal, evidenced as Mn spin S = 5/2, and provided an explanation for the low magnetization per Mn atom observed, signature of competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions between Mn2+ ions. Our studies provide insight to better understand and control the Mn incorporation in our samples to optimize their properties.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Structural and magnetic properties of molecular beam epitaxy (MnSb2Te4)x(Sb2Te3)1-x topological materials with exceedingly high Curie temperature

Tuning magnetic properties of magnetic topological materials is of interest to realize elusive physical phenomena such as quantum anomalous hall effect (QAHE) at higher temperatures and design topological spintronic devices. However, current topological materials exhibit Curie temperature (TC) values far below room temperature. In recent years, significant progress has been made to control and optimize TC, particularly through defect engineering of these structures. Most recently we showed evidence of TC values up to 80K for (MnSb2Te4)x(Sb2Te3)1-x, where x is greater than or equal to 0.7 and less than or equal to 0.85, by controlling the compositions and Mn content in these structures. Here we show further enhancement of the TC, as high as 100K, by maintaining high Mn content and reducing the growth rate from 0.9 nm/min to 0.5 nm/min. Derivative curves reveal the presence of two TC components contributing to the overall value and propose TC1 and TC2 have distinct origins: excess Mn in SLs and Mn in Sb2-yMnyTe3QLs alloys, respectively. In pursuit of elucidating the mechanisms promoting higher Curie temperature values in this system, we show evidence of structural disorder where Mn is occupying not only Sb sites but also Te sites, providing evidence of significant excess Mn and a new crystal structure:(Mn1+ySb2-yTe4)x(Sb2-yMnyTe3)1-x. Our work shows progress in understanding how to control magnetic defects to enhance desired magnetic properties and the mechanism promoting these high TC in magnetic topological materials such as (Mn1+ySb2-yTe4)x(Sb2-yMnyTe3)1-x.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Tuning supercurrent in Josephson field effect transistors using h-BN dielectric

The transparent interface in epitaxial Al-InAs heterostructures provides an excellent platform for potential advances in mesoscopic and topological superconductivity. Semiconductor-based Josephson Junction Field Effect Transistors (JJ-FETs) fabricated on these heterostructures have a metallic gate that tunes the supercurrent. Here we report the fabrication and measurement of gate-tunable Al-InAs JJ-FETs in which the gate dielectric in contact with the InAs is produced by mechanically exfoliated hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) followed by dry transfer using a van der Waals-mediated pick up process. We discuss the fabrication process that enables compatibility between layered material transfer and Al-InAs heterostructures to avoid chemical reactions and unintentional doping that could affect the characteristics of the JJ-FET. We achieve full gate-tunablity of supercurrent by using only 5~nm thick h-BN flakes. We contrast our process with devices fabricated using a conventional AlO$_{\rm x}$ gate dielectric and show that h-BN could be an excellent competing dielectric for JJ-FET devices. We observe that the product of normal resistance and critical current, I$_{\rm c}$R$_{\rm n}$, is comparable for both types of devices, but strikingly higher R$_{\rm n}$ for the h-BN-based devices indicating that the surface is doped less compared to AlO$_{\rm x}$ gate dielectric.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Transport Properties of Near Surface InAs Two-dimensional Heterostructures

Two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) confined to the surface of narrowband semiconductors have attracted great interest since they can easily integrate with superconductivity (or ferromagnetism) enabling new possibilities in hybrid device architectures and study of exotic states in proximity of superconductors. In this work, we study indium arsenide heterostructures where combination of clean interface with superconductivity, high mobility and spin-orbit coupling can be achieved. The weak antilocalization measurements indicate presence of strong spin-orbit coupling at high densities. We study the magnetotransport as a function of top barrier and density and report clear observation of integer quantum Hall states. We report improved electron mobility reaching up to 44,000 cm$^{2}$/Vs in undoped heterstructures and well developed integer quantum Hall states starting as low as 2.5~T.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Superconducting proximity effect in epitaxial Al-InAs heterostructures

Semiconductor-based Josephson junctions provide a platform for studying proximity effect due to the possibility of tuning junction properties by gate voltage and large-scale fabrication of complex Josephson circuits. Recently Josephson junctions using InAs weak link with epitaxial aluminum contact have improved the product of normal resistance and critical current, $I_cR_N$, in addition to fabrication process reliability. Here we study similar devices with epitaxial contact and find large supercurrent and substantial product of $I_cR_N$ in our junctions. However we find a striking difference when we compare these samples with higher mobility samples in terms of product of excess current and normal resistance, $I_{ex}R_N$. The excess current is negligible in lower mobility devices while it is substantial and independent of gate voltage and junction length in high mobility samples. This indicates that even though both sample types have epitaxial contacts only the high-mobility one has a high transparency interface. In the high mobility short junctions, we observe values of $I_cR_N/Δ\sim 2.2$ and $I_{ex}R_N/Δ\sim 1.5$ in semiconductor weak links.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

The multi-terminal Josephson effect

Establishment of phase-coherence and a non-dissipative (super)current between two weakly coupled superconductors, known as the Josephson effect, plays a foundational role in basic physics and applications to metrology, precision sensing, high-speed digital electronics, and quantum computing. The junction ranges from planar insulating oxides to single atoms, molecules, semiconductor nanowires, and generally to any finite-size coherent conductor. Recently, junctions of more than two superconducting terminals gained broad attention in the context of braiding of Majorana fermions in the solid state for fault-tolerant quantum computing, and accessing physics and topology in dimensions higher than three. Here we report the first observation of Josephson effect in 3- and 4-terminal junctions, fabricated in a top-down fashion from a semiconductor/superconductor (InAs/Al) epitaxial two-dimensional heterostructure. Due to interactions, the critical current of an N-terminal junction becomes the boundary of an (N-1)-dimensional manifold of simultaneously allowed supercurrents. The measured shapes of such manifolds are explained by the scattering theory of mesoscopic superconductivity, and they can be remarkably sensitive to the junction's symmetry class. Furthermore, we observed a notably high-order (up to 8) multiple Andreev reflections simultaneously across every terminals pair, which verifies the multi-terminal nature of normal scattering and a high interface quality in our devices. Given the previously shown gate-control of carrier density and evidence of spin-orbit scattering in InAs/Al heterostructures, and device compatibility with other 2D materials, the multi-terminal Josephson effect reported here can become a testbed for physics and applications of topological superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Strong Electron-Electron Interactions of a Tomonaga--Luttinger Liquid Observed in InAs Quantum Wires

We report strong electron-electron interactions in quantum wires etched from an InAs quantum well, a material known to have strong spin-orbit interactions. We find that the current through the wires as a function of the bias voltage and temperature follows the universal scaling behavior of a Tomonaga--Luttinger liquid. Using a universal scaling formula, we extract the interaction parameter and find strong electron-electron interactions, increasing as the wires become more depleted. We establish theoretically that spin-orbit interactions cause only minor modifications of the interaction parameter in this regime, indicating that genuinely strong electron-electron interactions are indeed achieved in the device. Our results suggest that etched InAs wires provide a platform with both strong electron-electron and strong spin-orbit interactions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗