Search for: All records

Nonreciprocal superconducting devices have attracted growing interest in recent years as they potentially enable directional charge transport for applications in superconducting quantum circuits. Specifically, the superconducting diode effect has been explored in two-terminal devices that exhibit superconducting transport in one current direction while showing dissipative transport in the opposite direction. Here, we exploit multiterminal Josephson junctions (MTJJs) to engineer magnetic-field-free nonreciprocity in multiport networks. We show that when treated as a two-port electrical network, a three terminal Josephson junction (JJ) with an asymmetric graphene region exhibits reconfigurable two-port nonreciprocity. We observe nonreciprocal (reciprocal) transport between superconducting terminals with broken (preserved) spatial mirror symmetry. We explain our observations by considering a circuit network of JJs with different critical currents. 

The interface between two different materials can show unexpected quantum phenomena. In this study, we used molecular beam epitaxy to synthesize heterostructures formed by stacking together two magnetic materials, a ferromagnetic topological insulator (TI) and an antiferromagnetic iron chalcogenide (FeTe). We observed emergent interface-induced superconductivity in these heterostructures and demonstrated the co-occurrence of superconductivity, ferromagnetism, and topological band structure in the magnetic TI layer—the three essential ingredients of chiral topological superconductivity (TSC). The unusual coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity is accompanied by a high upper critical magnetic field that exceeds the Pauli paramagnetic limit for conventional superconductors at low temperatures. These magnetic TI/FeTe heterostructures with robust superconductivity and atomically sharp interfaces provide an ideal wafer-scale platform for the exploration of chiral TSC and Majorana physics. 

Over the last decade, the possibility of realizing topological superconductivity (TSC) has generated much excitement. TSC can be created in electronic systems where the topological and superconducting orders coexist, motivating the continued exploration of candidate material platforms to this end. Here, we use molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to synthesize heterostructures that host emergent interfacial superconductivity when a non-superconducting antiferromagnet (FeTe) is interfaced with a topological insulator (TI) (Bi, Sb)₂Te₃. By performing in-vacuo angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and ex-situ electrical transport measurements, we find that the superconducting transition temperature and the upper critical magnetic field are suppressed when the chemical potential approaches the Dirac point. We provide evidence to show that the observed interfacial superconductivity and its chemical potential dependence is the result of the competition between the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida-type ferromagnetic coupling mediated by Dirac surface states and antiferromagnetic exchange couplings that generate the bicollinear antiferromagnetic order in the FeTe layer.