We consider heterostructures obtained by stacking layers of two s-wave superconductors with significantly different coupling strengths, respectively in the weak- and strong-coupling regimes. The weak- and strong-coupling superconductors are chosen with similar critical temperatures for bulk systems. Using dynamical mean-field theory methods, we find an ubiquitous enhancement of the superconducting critical temperature for all the heterostructures where a single layer of one of the two superconductors is alternated with a thicker multilayer of the other. Two distinct physical regimes can be identified as a function of the thickness of the larger layer: (i) an inherently inhomogeneous superconductor characterized by the properties of the two isolated bulk superconductors where the enhancement of the critical temperature is confined to the interface and (ii) a bulk superconductor with an enhanced critical temperature extending to the whole heterostructure. We characterize the crossover between these regimes in terms of the competition between two length scales connected with the proximity effect and the pair coherence.
We show how in principle a coherent coupling between two superconductors of opposite parity can be realized in a three-layer oxide heterostructure. Due to strong intraionic spin-orbit coupling in the middle layer, singlet Cooper pairs are converted into triplet ones and vice versa. This results in a large enhancement of the triplet superconductivity, persisting well above the native triplet critical temperature.
There is intense controversy around the unconventional superconductivity in strontium ruthenate, where the various theoretical and experimental studies suggest diverse and mutually exclusive pairing symmetries. Currently, the investigation is solely focused on only one material, Sr2RuO4, and the field suffers from the lack of comparison targets. Here, employing a density functional theory based analysis, we show that the heterostructure composed of SrRuO3 and SrTiO3 is endowed with all the key characteristics of Sr2RuO4, and, in principle, can host superconductivity. Furthermore, we show that …
We present a low-energy muon-spin-rotation study of the magnetic and superconducting properties of YBa2Cu3O7/PrBa2Cu3O7 trilayer and bilayer heterostructures. By determining the magnetic-field profiles throughout these structures we show that a finite superfluid density can be induced in otherwise semiconducting PrBa2Cu3O7 layers when juxtaposed to YBa2Cu3O7 "electrodes" while the intrinsic antiferromagnetic order is unaffected.
We propose to increase the superconducting transition temperature Tc of strongly correlated materials by designing heterostructures which exhibit a high pairing energy as a result of magnetic fluctuations. More precisely, applying an effective theory of the doped Mott insulator, we envisage a bilayer Hubbard system where both layers exhibit prominent intralayer (intraband) d-wave superconducting correlations. Introducing a finite asymmetry between the hole densities of the two layers such that one layer becomes slightly more underdoped and the other more overdoped, we evidence a visible enhanc…
Heterostructures composed of ferromagnetic La0.7Sr0.3MnO3, ferromagnetic SrRuO3, and superconducting YBa2Cu3Ox were studied experimentally. Structures of composition Au/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrRuO3/YBa2Cu3Ox were prepared by pulsed laser deposition, and their high quality was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and reflectometry. A non-collinear magnetic state of the heterostructures was revealed by means of SQUID magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry. We have further observed superconducting currents in mesa-structures fabricated by deposition of a second superconducting Nb layer on top of the…
The interface superconductivity in LaAlO$_{3}$-SrTiO$_{3}$ heterostructures reveals a non-monotonic behavior of the critical temperature as a function of the two-dimensional density of charge carriers. We develop a theoretical description of interface superconductivity in strongly polar heterostructures, based on the dielectric function formalism. The density dependence of the critical temperature is calculated accounting for all phonon branches including different types of optical (interface and half-space) and acoustic phonons. The LO- and acoustic-phonon-mediated electron-electron interacti…
Mixing of topological states with superconductivity could result in topological superconductivity with the elusive Majorana fermions potentially applicable in fault-tolerant quantum computing. One possible candidate considered for realization of topological superconductivity is thin bismuth films on Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+δ}$ (Bi2212). Here, we present angle-resolved and core-level photoemission spectroscopy studies of thin Bi films grown {\it in-situ} on as-grown Bi2212 that show the absence of proximity effect. We find that the electron transfer from the film to the substrate and the resu…
We report the first clear observation of interfacial superconductivity on top of FeTe(FT) covered by one quintuple-layer Bi$_2$Te$_3$(BT) forming van-der-Waals heterojunction. Both transport and scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements confirm the occurrence of superconductivity at a transition temperature T$_c$ = 13~K, when a single-quintuple-layer BT is deposited on the non-superconducting FT surface. The superconductivity gap decays exponentially with the thickness of BT, suggesting it occurs at the BT-FT interface and the proximity length is above 5-6~nm. We also measure the work funct…
Superconductivity at the interface of a heterostructure confined to nanometer-sized scale offers unique opportunities to study the exotic physics of two-dimensional superconductivity. The realization of superconductivity at the interface between a topological insulator and an iron-chalcogenide compound is highly attractive for exploring several recent theoretical predictions involving these two new classes of materials. Here, we report transport measurements on a Bi2Te3/FeTe heterostructure fabricated via van der Waals epitaxy, which demonstrate superconductivity at the interface induced by th…
Complex oxide heterointerfaces can host a rich of emergent phenomena, and epitaxial growth is usually at the heart of forming these interfaces. Recently, a strong crystalline-orientation-dependent two-dimensional superconductivity was discovered at interfaces between KTaO3 single-crystal substrates and films of other oxides. Unexpectedly, rare of these oxide films was epitaxially grown. Here, we report the existence of superconductivity in epitaxially grown LaVO3/KTaO3(111) heterostructures, with a superconducting transition temperature of ~0.5 K. Meanwhile, no superconductivity was detected i…
Van der Waals heterostructures have risen as a tunable platform to combine different electronic orders, due to the flexibility in stacking different materials with competing symmetry broken states. Among them, van der Waals ferromagnets such as CrI3 and superconductors as NbSe2 provide a natural platform to engineer novel phenomena at ferromagnet-superconductor interfaces. In particular, NbSe2 is well known for hosting strong spin-orbit coupling effects that influence the properties of the superconducting state. Here we put forward a ferromagnet/NbSe2/ferromagnet heterostructure where the inte…
We report the violation of the Pauli limit due to intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in SrTiO3 heterostructures. Via selective doping down to a few nanometers, a two-dimensional superconductor is formed, geometrically suppressing orbital pair-breaking. The spin-orbit scattering is exposed by the robust in-plane superconducting upper critical field, exceeding the Pauli limit by a factor of 4. Transport scattering times several orders of magnitude higher than for conventional thin film superconductors enables a new regime to be entered, where spin-orbit coupling effects arise non-perturbatively.
Bi2Te3/Fe1+yTe heterostructures are known to exhibit interfacial superconductivity between two non-superconducting materials: Fe1+yTe as the parent compound of Fe-based superconducting materials and the topological insulator Bi2Te3. Here, we present a top-down approach starting from two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures to fabricate one-dimensional (1D) Bi2Te3/Fe1+yTe nanowires or narrow nanoribbons. We demonstrate that the Bi2Te3/Fe1+yTe heterostructure remains intact in nanostructures of widths on the order of 100 nm and the interfacial superconductivity is preserved, as evidenced by electri…
We report on the study of electron transport in the oxide heterostructures with superconductor/magnetic matter (S/M) interfaces where anomaly large penetration of superconducting correlations in magnetic matter (proximity effect) is realized. The developed theoretical model based on multilayer magnetic structure of M-interlayer and experiment show presence of the long-range proximity effect at S/M-interface with antiferromagnetic (AF) ordering of the interlayer magnetization. The investigated hybrid heterostructures include cuprate superconductor, the AF-cuprate interlayer and conventional sup…
An electrostatic field, which is applied to a gated high-temperature superconducting (HTSC) film, is believed to affect the film similar to charge doping. Analyzing the pairing in terms of a t-J model, we show that a coupling to electric dipoles and phonons at the interface of film and dielectric gate localizes the injected charge and leads to a superconductor-insulator transition. This results in a dramatic modification of the doping dependent phase diagram close to and above the optimal doping which is expected to shed light on recent electric field-effect experiments with HTSC cuprates.
Thickness dependence of diode efficiency in superconducting Fe(Se,Te)/FeTe thin-film heterostructure devices
The University of Osaka（大阪大学）；Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives, The University of Osaka（大阪大学开放跨学科研究倡议研究所）；Tohoku University（东北大学）
Thin film heterostructures provide a powerful means to study the antagonism between superconductivity (SC) and ferromagnetism (FM). One interesting issue in FM-SC hybrids which defies the notion of antagonistic orders is the observation of magnetic field induced superconductivity (FIS). Here we show that in systems where the FM domains/islands produce spatial inhomogeneities of the SC order parameter, the FIS can derive significant contribution from different mobilities of the magnetic flux identified by two distinct critical states in the inhomogeneous superconductor. Our experiments on nanoe…
We report a unique experimental approach to create topological superconductors by inducing superconductivity into epitaxial metallic thin film with strong spin-orbit coupling. Utilizing molecular beam epitaxy technique under ultra-high vacuum condition, we are able to achieve (111) oriented single phase of gold (Au) thin film grown on a well-oriented vanadium (V) s-wave superconductor film with clean interface. We obtained atomically smooth Au thin films with thicknesses even down to below a nanometer showing near-ideal surface quality. The as-grown V/Au bilayer heterostructure exhibits superc…
The recent discovery of the interfacial superconductivity (SC) of the Bi2Te3/Fe1+yTe heterostructure has attracted extensive studies due to its potential as a novel platform for trapping and controlling Majorana fermions. Here we present studies of another topological insulator (TI)/Fe1+yTe heterostructure, Sb2Te3/Fe1+yTe, which also enjoys an interfacial two-dimensional SC. The results of transport measurements support that the reduction of excess Fe concentration of the Fe1+yTe layer not only increases the fluctuation of its antiferromagnetic (AFM) order but also enhances the quality of the …
Interfaces between transition-metal oxides are able to host two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) and exhibit exotic quantum phenomena. Here we report the observation of superconductivity below 230 mK for the heterostructure composed of SrNbO3 (SNO) and SrTiO3 (STO). Different from some other counterparts with two insulators, the metallic SNO provides a novel mechanism to form a quasi 2DEG by charge transfer from bulk towards interface under strain. The superconductivity, residing within the strained SNO layer near the interface, is contributed by an electron system with record-low carrier de…
A topological superconductor features at its boundaries and vortices Majorana fermions, which are potentially applicable for topological quantum computations. The scarcity of the known experimentally verified physical systems with topological superconductivity, time-reversal invariant ones in particular, is giving rise to a strong demand for identifying new candidate materials. In this research, we study a heterostructure consisting of a transition metal oxide two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) sandwiched by insulators near the paraelectric (PE) / ferroelectric (FE) phase transition. Its rele…
A scaling relation of vortex-induced rectification effects in a superconducting thin-film heterostructure
Osaka University（大阪大学）；Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives, Osaka University（大阪大学开放跨学科研究倡议研究所）；Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University（东北大学材料科学研究所）
The original proposal to achieve superconductivity by starting from a quantum spin-liquid (QSL) and doping it with charge carriers, as proposed by Anderson in 1987, has yet to be realized. Here we propose an alternative strategy: use a QSL as a substrate for heterostructure growth of metallic films to design exotic superconductors. By spatially separating the two key ingredients of superconductivity, i.e., charge carriers (metal) and pairing interaction (QSL), the proposed setup naturally lands on the parameter regime conducive to a controlled theoretical prediction. Moreover, the proposed set…
We report on the direct observation of interface superconductivity in single-unit-cell SnSe2 films grown on graphitized SiC(0001) substrate by means of van der Waals epitaxy. Tunneling spectrum in the superconducting state reveals rather conventional character with a fully gapped order parameter. The occurrence of superconductivity is further confirmed by the presence of vortices under external magnetic field. Through interface engineering, we unravel the mechanism of superconductivity that originates from a two-dimensional electron gas formed at the interface of SnSe2 and graphene. Our findin…
We examine the effect of CuO intergrowths on the superconductivity in epitaxial La_{2/3}Ca_{1/3}MnO_3/YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-δ} (LCMO/YBCO) thin-film heterostructures. Scanning transmission electron microscopy on bilayer LCMO/YBCO thin films revealed double CuO-chain intergrowths which form regions with the 247 lattice structure in the YBCO layer. These nanoscale 247 regions do not appear in x-ray diffraction, but can physically account for the reduced critical temperature Tc of bilayer thin films relative to unilayer films with the same YBCO thickness, at least down to ~25 nm. We attribute the CuO int…
Driven-dissipative superconductivity in moiré heterostructure without attraction
Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland（马里兰大学联合量子研究所）；ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology（巴塞罗那科技大学光子科学研究所）；Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院量子电子学研究所）；Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne（科隆大学理论物理研究所）
We have discovered superconductivity in the two-layer semiconducting monochalcogenide heterostrutures PbTe/PbS, PbTe/PbSe and PbTe/YbS. By comparing data from two-layer samples with data from single monochalcogenide films we conclude that the superconductivity is connected with the interface between the two semiconductors. Evidence for the low dimensional nature of the superconducting interlayer is presented and a model that explains the appearance of single-interface superconductivity is proposed.
Proximity effect induced intriguing superconductivity in van der Waals heterostructure of magnetic topological insulator and conventional superconductor
Recently, the natural heterostructure of (PbSe)5(Bi2Se3)6 has been theoretically predicted and experimentally confirmed as a topological insulator. In this work, we induce superconductivity in (PbSe)5(Bi2Se3)6 by implementing high pressure. As increasing pressure up to 10 GPa, superconductivity with Tc ~ 4.6 K suddenly appears, followed by an abrupt decrease. Remarkably, upon further compression above 30 GPa, a new superconducting state arises, where pressure raises the Tc to an unsaturated 6.0 K within the limit of our research. Combining XRD and Raman spectroscopies, we suggest that the emer…
We show that odd-parity superconductivity occurs in multilayer Rashba systems without requiring spin-triplet Cooper pairs. A pairing interaction in the spin-singlet channel stabilizes the odd-parity pair-density-wave (PDW) state in the magnetic field parallel to the two-dimensional conducting plane. It is shown that the layer-dependent Rashba spin-orbit coupling and the orbital effect play essential roles for the PDW state in binary and tricolor heterostructures. We demonstrate that the odd-parity PDW state is a symmetry-protected topological superconducting state characterized by the one-dime…
We present a fully first-principles method for superconducting thin films. The layer dependent phonon spectrum is calculated to determine the layer dependence of the electron-phonon coupling for such systems, which is coupled to the Kohn-Sham-Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, and it is solved in a parameter free way. The theory is then applied to different surface facets of niobium slabs and to niobium-gold heterostructures. We investigate the dependence of the transition temperature on the thickness of the slabs and the inverse proximity effect observed in thin superconducting heterostructures.
Understanding the superconducting proximity effect on the surface of a topological insulator is of critical importance in realizing topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions in solid state settings. We fabricate delicate heterostructure samples between topological insulator (TI) Bi2Se3 thin film and high temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+ (Tc ~ 91 K). Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we probe the electronic structure and the possible existence of superconducting gap on the top surface of Bi2Se3 thin films. Our systematic data show no significant proximity-induc…
We have performed angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on a heterostructure consisting of topological insulator Bi2Te3 and iron chalcogenide FeTe fabricated on SrTiO3 substrate by molecular-beam-epitaxy technique. This system was recently found to show superconductivity albeit non-superconducting nature of each constituent material. Upon interfacing FeTe with two quintuple layers of Bi2Te3, we found that the Dirac-cone surface state of Bi2Te3 is shifted toward higher binding energy, while the holelike band at the Fermi level originating from FeTe moves toward lower binding energy. This su…
Unconventional superconductivity and in particular triplet superconductivity have been front and center of topological materials and quantum technology research. Here we report our observation of triplet superconductivity in nonmagnetic CoSi$_2$/TiSi$_2$ heterostructures on silicon. CoSi$_2$ undergoes a sharp superconducting transition at a critical temperature $T_c \approx$ 1.5 K, while TiSi$_2$ is a normal metal. We investigate conductance spectra of both two-terminal CoSi$_2$/TiSi$_2$ tunnel junctions and three-terminal T-shaped CoSi$_2$/TiSi$_2$ superconducting proximity structures. We rep…
We investigate the hydrostatic pressure dependence of interfacial superconductivity occurring at the atomically sharp interface between two non-superconducting materials: the topological insulator (TI) Bi2Te3 and the parent compound Fe1+yTe of the chalcogenide iron based superconductors. Under pressure, a significant increase in the superconducting transition temperature Tc is observed. We trace the pressure dependence of a superconducting twin gap structure by Andreev reflection point contact spectroscopy (PCARS), which shows that a large superconducting gap associated with the interfacial su…
The designer approach has become a new paradigm in accessing novel quantum phases of matter. Moreover, the realization of exotic states such as topological insulators, superconductors and quantum spin liquids often poses challenging or even contradictory demands for any single material. For example, it is presently unclear if topological superconductivity, which has been suggested as a key ingredient for topological quantum computing, exists at all in any naturally occurring material . This problem can be circumvented by using designer heterostructures combining different materials, where the …
As a half-metal is spin-polarized at its Fermi level by definition, it was conventionally thought to have little proximity effect to an s-wave superconductor. Here we show that, with interface spin-orbit coupling, $p_x +ip_y$ superconductivity without spin degeneracy is induced on the half-metal, and we give an estimate of its bulk energy gap. Therefore a single-band half-metal can give us a topological superconductor with a single chiral Majorana edge state. Our band calculation shows that two atomic layers of VTe or CrO$_2$ is a single-band half-metal for a wide range ($\sim$0.1eV) of Fermi …
We show theoretically that a heterostructure of monolayer FeTe$_{1-x}$Se$_x$ - a superconducting quantum spin Hall material - with a monolayer of FeTe - a bicollinear antiferromagnet - realizes a higher order topological superconductor phase characterized by emergent Majorana zero modes pinned to the sample corners. We provide a minimal effective model for this system, analyze the origin of higher order topology, and fully characterize the topological phase diagram. Despite the conventional s-wave pairing, we find rather surprising emergence of a novel topological nodal superconductor in the p…
Vertical graphene heterostructures made up of graphene layers separated by BN spacers allow for novel ways of tuning the interactions between electrons. We study the possibility of electron pairing mediated by modified repulsive interactions. Long range intravalley and short range intervalley interactions give rise to different anisotropic phases. We show that a superconducting state with gaps of opposite signs in different valleys, an odd momentum pairing state, can exist above carrier densities of $5-10 \times 10^{13} {\rm cm}^{-2}$. The dependence of the transition temperature on the differ…
Electronic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is essential for various newly discovered phenomena in condensed-matter systems. In particular, one-dimensional topological heterostructures with SOC have been widely investigated in both theory and experiment for their distinct transport signatures indicating the presence of emergent Majorana fermions. However, a general framework for the SOC-affected transport in superconducting heterostructures, especially with the consideration of interfacial effects, has not been developed even regardless of the topological aspects. We hereby provide one for an effecti…
We report measurements of the superconducting transition temperature, $T_c$, in CoO/Co/Cu/Co/Nb multilayers as a function of the angle $α$ between the magnetic moments of the Co layers. Our measurements reveal that $T_c(α)$ is a nonmonotonic function, with a minimum near $α=π/{2}$. Numerical self-consistent solutions of the Bogoliubov - de Gennes equations quantitatively and accurately describe the behavior of $T_c$ as a function of $α$ and layer thicknesses in these superconductor / spin-valve heterostructures. We show that experimental data and theoretical evidence agree in relating $T_c(α)$…
We show that the presence of Majorana zero modes (2D), and chiral-dispersing Majorana modes (3D), in the vortex cores of superconductors are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for one to conclude the superconductivity is topologically non-trivial. We discuss the relevance of this result to the proximity-induced superconductivity, in the presence of magnetic field, on the surface of topological insulators.
Interfacial phonons between iron-based superconductors (FeSCs) and perovskite substrates have received considerable attention due to the possibility of enhancing preexisting superconductivity. Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we studied the correlation between superconductivity and e-ph interaction with interfacial-phonons in an iron-based superconductor Sr$_2$VO$_3$FeAs ($T_c \approx$ 33 K) made of alternating FeSC and oxide layers. The quasiparticle interference measurement over regions with systematically different average superconducting gaps due to the e-ph coupling locally modulate…
We have investigated the structural, magnetic and superconducting properties of [Nb(1.5nm)/Fe(x)]$_{10}$ superlattices deposited on a thick Nb(50nm) layer. Our investigation showed that the Nb(50nm) layer grows epitaxially at 800$^\circ$C on Al$_2$O$_3$(1$\bar{1}$02) substrate. Samples grown at this condition posses a high residual resistivity ratio of 15-20. By using neutron reflectometry we show that Fe/Nb superlattices with $x<$ 4 nm form a depth-modulated FeNb alloy with concentration of iron varying between 60% and 90%. This alloy has properties of a weak ferromagnet. Proximity of this we…
