Optical Properties of TiN Thin Films close to the Superconductor-Insulator Transition

Electronic Evidence of an Insulator-Superconductor Transition in Single-Layer FeSe/SrTiO3 Films

In high temperature cuprate superconductors, it is now generally agreed that the parent compound is a Mott insulator and superconductivity is realized by doping the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator. In the iron-based superconductors, however, the parent compound is mostly antiferromagnetic metal, raising a debate on whether an appropriate starting point should go with an itinerant picture or a localized picture. It has been proposed theoretically that the parent compound of the iron-based superconductors may be on the verge of a Mott insulator, but so far no clear experimental evidence of dopi…

A new superconductor derived from topological insulator heterostructure

Topological superconductors (TSCs) are of significant current interest because they offer promising platforms for finding Majorana fermions. Here we report a new superconductor synthesized by intercalating Cu into a naturally-formed topological insulator (TI) heterostructure consisting of Bi2Se3 TI units separated by nontopological PbSe units. For the first time in a TI-based superconductor, the specific-heat behavior of this material suggests the occurrence of unconventional superconductivity with gap nodes. The existence of gap nodes in a strongly spin-orbit coupled superconductor would give…

Topological Crystalline Insulators and Topological Superconductors: From Concepts to Materials

In this review, we discuss recent progress in the explorations of topological materials beyond topological insulators; specifically, we focus on topological crystalline insulators and bulk topological superconductors. The basic concepts, model Hamiltonians, and novel electronic properties of these new topological materials are explained. The key role of symmetries that underlie their topological properties is elucidated. Key issues in their materials realizations are also discussed.

Disappearance of Nodal Gap across the Insulator-Superconductor Transition in a Copper-Oxide Superconductor

The parent compound of the copper-oxide high temperature superconductors is a Mott insulator. Superconductivity is realized by doping an appropriate amount of charge carriers. How a Mott insulator transforms into a superconductor is crucial in understanding the unusual physical properties of high temperature superconductors and the superconductivity mechanism. Here we report high resolution angle-resolved photoemission measurement on heavily underdoped Bi2Sr2-xLaxCuO6+d system. The electronic structure of the lightly-doped samples exhibit a number of characteristics: existence of an energy gap…

Anomalous Energy Transport across Topological Insulator Superconductor Junctions

We study the nonequilibrium energy transport across a topological insulator/superconductor junction, by deriving an interfacial heat current formula through scattering wave approach. Several anomalous thermal properties are uncovered, such as thermal energy's Klein tunneling, asymmetric Kapitza resistance and negative differential thermal resistance. We expect these findings could have potential applications for the energy control in various hybridized mesoscopic systems.

Nontrivial surface topological physics from strong and weak topological insulators and superconductors

We investigate states on the surface of strong and weak topological insulators and superconductors that have been gapped by a symmetry breaking term. The surface of a strong 3D topological insulator gapped by a magnetic material is well known to possess a half quantum Hall effect. Furthermore, it has been known that the surface of a weak 3D topological insulator gapped by a charge density wave exhibits a half quantum spin Hall effect. To generalize these results to all Altland-Zirnbauer symmetry classes of topological insulators and superconductors, we reproduce the classification table for th…

Preparation of Metal Mixed Plastic Superconductors: Electrical Properties of Tin-Antimony Thin Films on Plastic Substrates

Metal mixed polymers are a cheap and effective way to produce flexible metals and superconductors. As part of an on-going effort to learn how to tune the properties of these systems with ion implantation, we present a study of the electrical properties of these systems prior to metal-mixing. We show that the electrical properties of tin-antimony thin films are remarkably robust to variations in the substrate morphology. We demonstrate that the optical absorbance of the films at a fixed wavelength provides a reliable and reproducible characterization of the relative film thickness. We find that…

界面增强的超导性在拓扑绝缘体近邻的超薄TiN中

Interface-Enhanced Superconductivity in Ultrathin TiN Proximitized by Topological Insulators

本研究通过界面工程在超薄TiN中实现了界面增强的超导性，揭示了拓扑绝缘体-超导体异质结构中超导性的调控机制。

Direct evidence of intercalation in a topological insulator turned superconductor

A topological insulator Bi2Se3 which shows superconducting property due to Cu doping has been studied using high resolution transmission electron microscopy which provides for the first time, the direct evidence of intercalation sites. A careful study exhibits the presence of two intercalation sites in this material when projected along the [-1-1 2 0] direction. Stoichiometry of the intercalated unit cell was also calculated from the projected potential.

Inversion symmetry protected topological insulators and superconductors

Three dimensional topological insulator represents a class of novel quantum phases hosting robust gapless boundary excitations, which is protected by global symmetries such as time reversal, charge conservation and spin rotational symmetry. In this work we systematically study another class of topological phases of weakly interacting electrons protected by spatial inversion symmetry, which generally don't support stable gapless boundary states. We classify these inversion-symmetric topological insulators and superconductors in the framework of K-theory, and construct their lattice models. We a…

Observation of Topological Crystalline Insulator phase in the lead tin chalcogenide Pb1-xSnxTe material class

We perform systematic angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopic measurements on the lead tin telluride Pb1-xSnxTe pseudobinary alloy system. We show that the (001) crystalline surface, which is a crystalline surface symmetric about the (110) mirror planes of the Pb1-xSnxTe crystal, pos- sesses four metallic surface states within its surface Brillouin zone. Our systematic Fermi surface and band topology measurements show that the observed Dirac-like surface states lie on the symmetric momentum-space cuts. We further show that upon going to higher electron binding energies, the surface states' …