Induced Superconductivity in the Quantum Spin Hall Regime: Towards Topological Superconductivity

by Amir Yaacoby

at Condensed Matter Theory Seminar

Wed, 09 Mar 2016, 13:30
Physics building (#54) room 207

Abstract

Topological insulators are a newly discovered phase of matter characterized by gapped bulk states surrounded by conducting boundary states Since their theoretical discovery these materials have encouraged intense efforts to study their properties and capabilities Among the most striking results of this activity are proposals to engineer a new variety of superconductor at the surfaces of topological insulators These topological superconductors would be capable of supporting localized Majorana Fermions particles whose braiding properties have been proposed as the basis of a fault tolerant quantum computer Despite the clear theoretical motivation a conclusive realization of topological superconductivity remains an outstanding experimental goal Here we present measurements of superconductivity induced in two dimensional HgTe HgCdTe quantum wells a material that becomes a quantum spin Hall insulator when the well width exceeds 6 3 nm In wells that are 7 5 nm wide we find that supercurrents are confined to the one dimensional sample edges as the bulk density is depleted directly manifesting the topological nature of the system In addition when the chemical potential is in the conduction band unconventional superconductivity with triplet pairing is induced

Created on 06-03-2016 by Bar Lev, Yevgeny (ybarlev)
Updaded on 06-03-2016 by Bar Lev, Yevgeny (ybarlev)