We investigate the influence of the superconducting (S) proximity effect in the quantum Hall (QH) regime by computing the charge conductance flowing through a graphene-based QH/S/QH junction. This situation offers the exciting possibility of studying the fate of topological edge states when they experience tunneling processes through the superconductor. We predict the appearance of conductance peaks at integer values of the Landau level filling factor, as a consequence of the quantum interferences taking place at the junction, and provide a semiclassical analysis allowing for a natural interpretation of these interferences in terms of electron and hole trajectories propagating along the QH/S interfaces. Our results suggest that non-trivial junctions between topologically distinct phases could offer a highly tunable means of partitioning the flow of edge states.
Experimental evidence for Majorana bound states (MBSs) is so far mainly based on the robustness of a zero-bias conductance peak. However, similar features can also arise due to Andreev bound states (ABSs) localized at the end of an island. We show that these two scenarios can be distinguished by an interferometry experiment based on embedding a Coulomb-blockaded island into an Aharonov-Bohm ring. For two ABSs, when the ground state is nearly degenerate, cotunneling can change the state of the island and interference is suppressed. By contrast, for two MBSs the ground state is nondegenerate and…
Andreev interferometry - the sensitivity of the tunneling current to spatial variations in the local superconducting order at an interface - is proposed as a probe of the spatial structure of the phase correlations in the pseudogap state of the cuprate superconductors. To demonstrate this idea theoretically, a simple tunneling model is considered, via which the tunneling current is related to the equilibrium phase-phase correlator in the pseudogap state. These considerations suggest that measurement of the low-voltage conductance through mesoscopic contacts of varying areas provides a scheme f…
Andreev reflection spectroscopy of ferromagnet/superconductor (FS) junctions is an important probe of spin polarization. We theoretically investigate spin-polarized transport in FS junctions in the presence of Rashba and Dresselhaus interfacial spin-orbit fields and show that Andreev reflection can be controlled by changing the magnetization orientation. We predict a giant in- and out-of-plane magnetoanisotropy of the junction conductance. If the ferromagnet is highly spin polarized---in the half-metal limit---the magnetoanisotropic Andreev reflection depends universally on the spin-orbit fiel…
We study the excess conductance due to the superconducting proximity effect in a ballistic two-dimensional electron system subject to an in-plane magnetic field. We show that under certain conditions the interplay of the Zeeman spin splitting and the effect of a screening supercurrent gives rise to a spin-selective Andreev enhancement of the conductance and anomalies in its voltage, temperature and magnetic field characteristics. The magnetic-field influence on Andreev reflection is discussed in the context of using superconducting hybrid junctions for spin detection.
Topological insulators (TIs) have attracted immense interest because they host helical surface states. Protected by time-reversal symmetry, they are robust to non-magnetic disorder. When superconductivity is induced in these helical states, they are predicted to emulate p-wave pairing symmetry, with Majorana states bound to vortices. Majorana bound states possess non-Abelian exchange statistics which can be probed through interferometry. Here, we take a significant step towards Majorana interferometry by observing pronounced Fabry-Perot oscillations in a TI sandwiched between a superconducting…
Unlike the more common local conductance spectroscopy, nonlocal conductance can differentiate between nontopological zero-energy modes localized around inhomogeneities, and true Majorana edge modes in the topological phase. In particular, negative nonlocal conductance is dominated by the crossed Andreev reflection. In graphene, the Andreev reflection and the inter-band Klein tunneling couple electron-like and hole-like states through the action of either a superconducting (SC) pair potential or an electrostatic potential. We are here probing quantum phenomena in modified graphitic samples. Fou…
We construct a theory of coherent transport through a ballistic quantum dot coupled to a superconductor. We show that the leading-order quantum correction to the two-terminal conductance of these Andreev quantum dots may change sign depending on (i) the number of channels carried by the normal leads or (ii) the magnetic flux threading the dot. In contrast, spin-orbit interaction may affect the magnitude of the correction, but not always its sign. Experimental signatures of the effect include a non-monotonic magnetoconductance curve and a transition from an insulator-like to a metal-like temper…
We have studied magnetotransport in arrays of niobium filled grooves in an InAs/AlGaSb heterostructure. The critical field of up to 2.6 T permits to enter the quantum Hall regime. In the superconducting state, we observe strong magnetoresistance oscillations, whose amplitude exceeds the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations by a factor of about two, when normalized to the background. Additionally, we find that above a geometry-dependent magnetic field value the sample in the superconducting state has a higher longitudinal resistance than in the normal state. Both observations can be explained with ed…
We investigate the Andreev transport through double-quantum-dot Cooper pair splitters with ferromagnetic leads. The analysis is performed with the aid of the real-time diagrammatic technique in the sequential tunneling regime. We study the dependence of the Andreev current, the differential conductance, and the tunnel magnetoresistance on various parameters of the model in both the linear and nonlinear response regimes. In particular, we analyze the spin-resolved transport in the crossed Andreev reflection regime, where a blockade of the current occurs due to enhanced occupation of the triplet…
We present a theory of Andreev reflection in a ferromagnet/superconductor/ferromagnet double junction system. The spin polarized quasiparticles penetrate to the superconductor in the range of penetration depth from the interface by the Andreev reflection. When the thickness of the superconductor is comparable to or smaller than the penetration depth, the spin polarized quasiparticles pass through the superconductor and therefore the electric current depends on the relative orientation of magnetizations of the ferromagnets. The dependences of the magnetoresistance on the thickness of the superc…
We demonstrate how the boundary-driven reconstruction of the superconducting order parameter can be employed to manipulate the zero-energy Majorana bound states (MBSs) occurring in a topological Josephson junction. We focus on an interface of two p-wave superconductors, which are described by a spin-vector order parameter $\bf{d}$. Apart from the sensitivity of $\bf{d}$ to external Zeeman/exchange fields, here, we show that the orientation of $\bf{d}$ throughout the junction can be controlled by electrically gating the weak link. The remarkable local character of this knob is a manifestation o…
Tunneling Magnetoresistance between two ferrromagnets is an issue of fundamental importance in spintronics. In this work, we show that tunneling magnetoresistance can also emerge in junctions composed of ferromagnets and time-reversal invariant topological superconductors without spin-rotation symmetry. Here the physical origin is that when the spin-polarization direction of injected electron from the ferromagnet lying in the same plane of the spin-polarization direction of Majorana zero modes, the electron will undergo a perfect spin-equal Andreev reflection, while injected electrons with oth…
Complete suppression of the native n-type Schottky barrier is demonstrated in Al/InGaAs(001) junctions grown by molecular-beam-epitaxy. This result was achieved by the insertion of Si bilayers at the metal-semiconductor interface allowing the realization of truly Ohmic non-alloyed contacts in low-doped and low-In content InGaAs/Si/Al junctions. It is shown that this technique is ideally suited for the fabrication of high-transparency superconductor-semiconductor junctions. To this end magnetotransport characterization of Al/Si/InGaAs low-n-doped single junctions below the Al critical temperatu…
Interferometry is a powerful tool for entanglement production and detection in multiterminal mesoscopic systems. Here we propose a setup to produce, manipulate and detect entanglement in the electron-hole degree of freedom by exploiting Andreev reflection on chiral one-dimensional channels via interferometry. We study the best possible case in which two-particle interferometry produces superpositions of maximally entangled states. This is achieved by mixing chiral Dirac channels through chiral Majorana modes. We show that it is possible to extract entanglement witnesses through current cross-c…
Recent development in fabrication of hybrid nanostructures allows for creation of quantum interferometers that combine semiconductor and superconductor materials. We show that in those nanostructures the joint phenomena of Aharonov-Bohm effect and Andreev reflections can be used to determine the length on which the electron is retro-reflected as a hole. We propose to exploit this feature for probing of the quasiparticle coherence length in semiconductor-superconductor hybrids by a magnetoconductance measurement.
We perform a comparative study of the quantum and classical transport probabilities of low-energy quasiparticles ballistically traversing normal and Andreev two-dimensional open cavities with a Sinai-billiard shape. We focus on the dependence of the transport on the strength of an applied magnetic field $B$. With increasing field strength the classical dynamics changes from mixed to regular phase space. Averaging out the quantum fluctuations, we find an excellent agreement between the quantum and classical transport coefficients in the complete range of field strengths. This allows an overall …
Superconducting proximity junctions made of topological insulator (TI) nanoribbons (NRs) provide a useful platform for studying topological superconductivity. We report on the fabrication and measurement of Josephson junctions (JJs) using Sb doped Bi$_2$Se$_3$ NRs in contact with Al electrodes. Aharonov$-$Bohm and Altshuler$-$Aronov$-$Spivak oscillations of the axial magneto-conductance of TI NR were observed, indicating the existence of metallic surface states along the circumference of the TI NR. We observed the supercurrent in the TI NR JJ and subharmonic gap structures of the differential …
Studying the interplay between superconductivity and quantum magnetotransport in two-dimensional materials has been a topic of interest in recent years. Towards such a goal it is important to understand the impact of magnetic field on the charge transport at the superconductor-normal channel (SN) interface. Here we carried out a comprehensive study of Andreev conductance under weak magnetic fields using diffusive superconductor- graphene Josephson weak links. We observe that the Andreev conductance is suppressed even in magnetic fields far below the upper critical field of the superconductor. …
We investigate the DC Josephson effect in a superconductor-normal metal-superconductor junction where the normal region consists of a ballistic ring. We show that a fully controllable $π$-junction can be realized through the electro-magnetostatic Aharonov-Bohm effect in the ring. The sign and the magnitude of the supercurrent can be tuned by varying the magnetic flux and the gate voltage applied to one arm, around suitable values. The implementation in a realistic set-up is discussed.
We experimentally study the electrical transport properties of Ge/Si core/shell nanowire device with two superconducting leads in the Coulomb blockade regime. Anomalous zero field magnetoconductance peaks are observed for the first time at the gate voltages where Coulomb blockade oscillation peaks present. Many evidences indicate this feature is due to Andreev reflection enhanced phase coherent single hole tunneling through the quantum dot, which can be suppressed by an external magnetic field without destroying the superconducting states in the electrodes.
We demonstrate possible scenarios for production of pure spin current and large tunnelling magnetoresistance ratios from elastic co-tunnelling and crossed Andreev reflection across a superconducting junction comprising of normal metal-superconductor-normal metal, where, the normal metal is a one-dimensional interacting quantum wire. We show that there are fixed points in the theory which correspond to the case of pure spin current. We analyze the influence of electron-electron interaction and see how it stabilizes or de-stabilizes the production of pure spin current. These fixed points can be …
We study the surface Andreev bound states (SABSs) and quasiparticle tunneling spectroscopy of three-dimensional (3D) chiral superconductor by changing the surface (interface) misorientation angle of chiral superconductors. We obtain analytical formula of the energy dispersion of SABS for general pair potential when an original 4$\times$4 BdG Hamiltonian can be reduced to be two 2$\times$2 blocks. The resulting SABS for 3D chiral superconductors with pair potential given by $k_z(k_x + ik_y)^ν$ $(ν = 1, 2)$ has a complicated energy dispersion due to the coexistence of both point and line nodes. …
Josephson junctions with topological insulator weak links can host low energy Andreev bound states giving rise to a current phase relation that deviates from sinusoidal behaviour. Of particular interest are zero energy Majorana bound states that form at a phase difference of $π$. Here we report on interferometry studies of Josephson junctions and superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) incorporating topological insulator weak links. We find that the nodes in single junction diffraction patterns and SQUID oscillations are lifted and independent of chemical potential. At high tempe…
The Andreev transport through a quantum dot coupled to two external ferromagnetic leads and one superconducting lead is studied theoretically by means of the real-time diagrammatic technique in the sequential and cotunneling regimes. We show that the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) of the Andreev current displays a nontrivial dependence on the bias voltage and the level detuning, and can be described by analytical formulas in the zero temperature limit. The cotunneling processes lead to a strong modification of the TMR, which is most visible in the Coulomb blockade regime. We find a zero-bias a…
We calculate the Andreev conductance of a superconducting ring interrupted by a flux-biased Josephson junction, searching for electrical signatures of circulating edge states. Two-dimensional pair potentials of spin-singlet d-wave and spin-triplet p-wave symmetry support, respectively, (chiral) Dirac modes and (chiral or helical) Majorana modes. These produce h/e-periodic magnetoconductance oscillations of amplitude \simeq (e^{2}/h)N^{-1/2}, measured via an N-mode point contact at the inner or outer perimeter of the grounded ring. For Dirac modes the oscillations in the two contacts are indepe…
The hybrid combination of superconductors and low-dimensional semiconductors offers a versatile ground for novel device concepts, such as sources of spin-entangled electrons, nanoscale superconducting magnetometers, or recently proposed qubits based on topologically protected Majorana fermions. The underlying physics behind such hybrid devices ultimately rely on the magnetic properties of sub-gap excitations, known as Andreev levels. Here we report the Zeeman effect on the Andreev levels of a semiconductor nanowire quantum dot (QD) strongly coupled to a conventional superconductor. The combina…
We theoretically study the spin-resolved subgap transport properties of a Cooper pair splitter based on a triple quantum dot attached to superconducting and ferromagnetic leads. Using the Keldysh Green's function formalism, we analyze the dependence of the Andreev conductance, Cooper pair splitting efficiency, and tunnel magnetoresistance on the gate and bias voltages applied to the system. We show that the system's transport properties are strongly affected by spin dependence of tunneling processes and quantum interference between different local and nonlocal Andreev reflections. We also stud…
The broad tunability of the proximity exchange effect between transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) and chromium iodide (CrI$_3$) heterostructures offers intriguing possibilities for the use of TMDCs in two-dimensional magnetoelectrics. In this work, the influence of the twist angle and the gate electric field on the electric and thermal transport in a TMDC/CrI$_3$ junction is investigated using the Dirac -Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation. We show that significant amounts can be controlled by spin-splitting of band structures due to spin-orbit interaction, and that the exchange-splitting of ba…
Quantum Hall (QH) interferometry provides an archetypal platform for the experimental realization of braiding statistics of fractional QH states. However, the complexity of observing fractional statistics requires phase coherence over the length of the interferometer, as well as suppression of Coulomb charging energy. Here, we demonstrate a new type of QH interferometer based on marginally twisted bilayer graphene (mtBLG), with a twist angle $θ$ $\approx$ $0.16$ $^{\circ}$. With the device operating in the QH regime, we observe distinct signatures of electronic Fabry-Pérot (FP) and Aharonov-Bo…
Coherent transport in Nb/GaAs superconductor-semiconductor microstructures is presented. The structures fabrication procedure is based on delta-doped layers grown by molecular-beam-epitaxy near the GaAs surface, followed by an As cap layer to protect the active semiconductor layers during ex situ transfer. The superconductor is then sputter deposited in situ after thermal desorption of the protective layer. Two types of structures in particular will be discussed, i.e., a reference junction and the engineered one that contains an additional insulating AlGaAs barrier inserted during the growth i…
The thermoelectric performance of a topological Josephson nonlocal heat engine is thoroughly investigated. The nonlocal response is obtained by using a normal metal probe coupled with only one of the proximized helical edges in the middle of the junction. In this configuration, we investigate how the flux bias and the phase bias trigger the nonlocal thermoelectric effects under the application of a thermal difference between the superconducting terminals. Possible experimental nonidealities such as asymmetric proximized superconducting gaps are considered showing how the nonlocal response can …
Measurement of multiple Andreev reflection (MAR) in a Josephson junction made from an InAs heterostructure with epitaxial aluminum is used to quantify the highly transparent semiconductor-superconductor interface, indicating near-unity transmission. The observed temperature dependence of MAR does not follow a conventional BCS form, but instead agrees with a model in which the density of states in the quantum well acquires an effective induced gap, in our case 180 μeV, close to that of the epitaxial superconductor. Carrier density dependence of MAR is investigated using a depletion gate, reveal…
Reflectionless-tunneling was observed in Nb/GaAs superconductor/semiconductor junctions fabricated through a two-step procedure. First, periodic $δ$-doped layers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy near the GaAs surface, followed by an As cap layer to protect the surface during {\it ex-situ} transfer. Second, Nb was deposited by dc-magnetron sputtering onto the GaAs(001) 2 $\times$ 4 surface {\it in-situ} after thermal desorption of the cap layer. The magnetotransport behavior of the resulting hybrid junctions was successfully analyzed within the random matrix theory of phase-coherent Andreev…
Three-dimensional topological insulator (3D TI) nanowires display various interesting magnetotransport properties that can be attributed to their spin-momentum-locked surface states such as quasiballistic transport and Aharonov-Bohm oscillations. Here, we focus on the transport properties of a 3D TI nanowire with a gated section that forms an electronic Fabry-Pérot (FP) interferometer that can be tuned to act as a surface-state filter or energy barrier. By tuning the carrier density and length of the gated section of the wire, the interference pattern can be controlled and the nanowire can bec…
Hybrid quantum devices expand the tools and techniques available for quantum sensing in various fields. Here, we experimentally demonstrate quantum sensing of the steady-state magnon population in a magnetostatic mode of a ferrimagnetic crystal. Dispersively coupling the magnetostatic mode to a superconducting qubit allows the detection of magnons using Ramsey interferometry with a sensitivity on the order of $10^{-3}$ $\text{magnons}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$. The protocol is based on dissipation as dephasing via fluctuations in the magnetostatic mode reduces the qubit coherence proportionally to the…
Quantum transport through an impurity-free Corbino disk in bilayer graphene is investigated analytically, by the mode-matching method for effective Dirac equation, in the presence of uniform magnetic fields. Similarly as in the monolayer case (see Refs. [1,2]), conductance at the Dirac point shows oscillations with the flux piercing the disk area $Φ_D$ characterized by the period $Φ_0=2\,(h/e)\ln(R_{\rm o}/R_{\rm i})$, where $R_{\rm o}$ ($R_{\rm i}$) is the outer (inner) disk radius. The oscillations magnitude depends either on the radii ratio or on the physical disk size, with the condition f…
