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P-wave superconductors hold immense promise for both fundamental physics and practical applications due to their unusual pairing symmetry and potential topological superconductivity. However, the exploration of the p-wave superconductors has proved to be a complex endeavor. Not only are they rare in nature but also the identification of p-wave superconductors has been an arduous task in history. For example, phase-sensitive measurement, an experimental technique which can provide conclusive evidence for unconventional pairing, has not been implemented successfully to identify p-wave superconductors. Here, we study a recently discovered family of superconductors, A2Cr3As3 (A = K, Rb, Cs), which were proposed theoretically to be a candidate of p-wave superconductors. We fabricate superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) on exfoliated K2Cr3As3, and perform the phase-sensitive measurement. We observe that such SQUIDs exhibit a pronounced second-order harmonic component sin(2{\phi}) in the current-phase relation, suggesting the admixture of 0- and {\pi}-phase. By carefully examining the magnetic field dependence of the oscillation patterns of critical current and Shapiro steps under microwave irradiation, we reveal a crossover from 0- to {\pi}-dominating phase state and conclude that the existence of the {\pi}-phase is in favor of the p-wave pairing symmetry in K2Cr3As3.

With the development of quantum technology, hybrid devices that combine superconductors (S) and semiconductors (Sm) have attracted great attention due to the possibility of engineering structures that benefit from the integration of the properties of both materials. However, until now, none of the experiments have reported good control of band alignment at the interface, which determines the strength of S-Sm coupling and the proximitized superconducting gap. Here, we fabricate hybrid devices in a generic way with argon milling to modify the interface while maintaining its high quality. First, after the milling the atomically connected S-Sm interfaces appear, resulting in a large induced gap, as well as the ballistic transport revealed by the multiple Andreev reflections and quantized above-gap conductance plateaus. Second, by comparing transport measurement with Schr\"odinger-Poisson (SP) calculations, we demonstrate that argon milling is capable of varying the band bending strength in the semiconducting wire as the electrons tend to accumulate on the etched surface for longer milling time. Finally, we perform nonlocal measurements on advanced devices to demonstrate the coexistence and tunability of crossed Andreev reflection (CAR) and elastic co-tunneling (ECT) -- key ingredients for building the prototype setup for realization of Kitaev chain and quantum entanglement probing. Such a versatile method, compatible with the standard fabrication process and accompanied by the well-controlled modification of the interface, will definitely boost the creation of more sophisticated hybrid devices for exploring physics in solid-state systems., Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures

Edge states in topological systems have attracted great interest due to their robustness and linear dispersions. Here a superconducting-proximitized edge interferometer is engineered on a topological insulator Ta2Pd3Te5 with asymmetric edges to realize the interfering Josephson diode effect (JDE), which hosts many advantages, such as the high efficiency as much as 73% at tiny applied magnetic fields with an ultra-low switching power around picowatt, and a giant interfering magnetochiral anisotropy with a maximal coefficient gamma = 1.2 x 10^{9} T^{-1}A^{-1}. As an important element to induce such JDE, the second-order harmonic in the current-phase relation is also experimentally confirmed by half-integer Shapiro steps. This edge interferometer offers a novel and effective method to enhance the overall performance of JDE and magnetochiral anisotropy, and boosts great potential applications for future superconducting quantum devices., Comment: 29 pages,21 figures

High-quality free-standing InAs nanosheets are emerging layered semiconductor materials with potentials in designing planar Josephson junction devices for novel physics studies due to their unique properties including strong spin-orbit couplings, large Land\'e g-factors and the two dimensional nature. Here, we report an experimental study of proximity induced superconductivity in planar Josephson junction devices made from free-standing InAs nanosheets. The nanosheets are grown by molecular beam epitaxy and the Josephson junction devices are fabricated by directly contacting the nanosheets with superconductor Al electrodes. The fabricated devices are explored by low-temperature carrier transport measurements. The measurements show that the devices exhibit a gate-tunable supercurrent, multiple Andreev reflections, and a good quality superconductor-semiconductor interface. The superconducting characteristics of the Josephson junctions are investigated at different magnetic fields and temperatures, and are analyzed based on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory. The measurements of ac Josephson effect are also conducted under microwave radiations with different radiation powers and frequencies, and integer Shapiro steps are observed. Our work demonstrates that InAs nanosheet based hybrid devices are desired systems for investigating forefront physics, such as the two-dimensional topological superconductivity.

Introducing an in-plane magnetic field into Josephson junctions is of fundamental significance in exploring a variety of interesting physical phenomena. However, extra care must be paid in realistic experiments involving an in-plane magnetic field, because trivial orbital effect due to, e.g., rippled structures can inevitably be introduced, which could produce false effect confusing the expected physical phenomena. In this work, we report a diamond-shaped evolution of the critical supercurrent in an in-plane magnetic field in NbTiN weak-link Josephson junctions. Upon application of an in-plane magnetic field perpendicular to the current, the superconducting interference pattern exhibits a characteristic evolution, which manifests as a diamond block diagram featured with each node opened and stretched out in a V-shape, mimicking the suppression-recovery patterns of critical supercurrent related to the Zeeman-driven 0-pi transition. However, the effect of Zeeman splitting plays a negligible role due to the relatively small magnetic field involved in our experiment. Therefore, we explore the trivial orbital effect of rippled structures and further take into account non-uniform current distributions pertaining in our junctions. We find that the ripples in combination with specific current distributions can give rise to a similar evolution pattern as the experimental observations. Our results serve as a caution that the combined effect of rippled structures and non-homogeneous current distributions should be taken seriously for experiments subjected by in-plane magnetic fields., Comment: 15pages,13 figures

Topological materials with boundary (surface/edge/hinge) states have attracted tremendous research interest. Besides, unconventional (obstructed atomic) materials have recently drawn lots of attention owing to their obstructed boundary states. Experimentally, Josephson junctions (JJs) constructed on materials with boundary states produce the peculiar boundary supercurrent, which was utilized as a powerful diagnostic approach. Here, we report the observations of conspicuous hinge supercurrent in NiTe$_2$-based JJs. Particularly, applying an in-plane magnetic field along the Josephson current could rapidly suppress the bulk supercurrent and retain the nearly pure hinge supercurrent, namely the magnetic field filtering of supercurrent. Further systematic comparative analysis and theoretical calculations demonstrate the existence of unconventional nature and obstructed hinge states in NiTe$_2$. Our results revealed the unique hinge states in unconventional metal NiTe$_2$, and demonstrated in-plane magnetic field as an efficient method to filter out the futile bulk contributions and thereby to highlight the hinge states hidden in topological/unconventional materials., Comment: 20+6 pages,6+5 figures

Coherence and tunneling play central roles in quantum phenomena. In a tunneling event, the time that a particle spends inside the barrier has been fiercely debated. This problem becomes more complex when tunneling repeatedly occurs back and forth, and when involving many particles. Here we report the measurement of the coherence time of various charge states tunneling in a nanowire-based tunable Josephson junction; including single charges, multiple charges, and Cooper pairs. We studied all the charge tunneling processes using Landau-Zener-St\"uckelberg-Majorana (LZSM) interferometry, and observed high-quality interference patterns. In particular, the coherence time of the charge states was extracted from the interference fringes in Fourier space. In addition, our measurements show the break-up of Cooper pairs, from a macroscopic quantum coherent state to individual particle states. Besides the fundamental research interest, our results also establish LZSM interferometry as a powerful technique to explore the coherence time of charges in hybrid devices., Comment: 21+15 pages, 4+9 figures

Negative differential conductance (NDC) manifests as a significant characteristic of various underlying physics and transport processes in hybrid superconducting devices. In this work, we report the observation of gate-tunable NDC outside the superconducting energy gap on two types of hybrid semiconductor-superconductor devices, i.e., normal metal-superconducting nanowire-normal metal and normal metal-superconducting nanowire-superconductor devices. Specifically, we study the dependence of the NDCs on back-gate voltage and magnetic field. When the back-gate voltage decreases, these NDCs weaken and evolve into positive differential conductance dips; and meanwhile they move away from the superconducting gap towards high bias voltage, and disappear eventually. In addition, with the increase of magnetic field, the NDCs/dips follow the evolution of the superconducting gap, and disappear when the gap closes. We interpret these observations and reach a good agreement by combining the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk (BTK) model and the critical supercurrent effect in the nanowire, which we call the BTK-supercurrent model. Our results provide an in-depth understanding of the tunneling transport in hybrid semiconductor-superconductor devices., Comment: 15+6 pages, 4+6 figures

Quantum magneto-oscillations have long been a vital subject in condensed matter physics, with ubiquitous quantum phenomena and diverse underlying physical mechanisms. Here, we demonstrate the intrinsic and reproducible DC-current-driven quantum electro-oscillations with a periodicity in the inverse of the current (1/I), in quasi-one-dimensional charge-density-wave (CDW) insulators (TaSe$_4$)$_2$I and TaS$_3$ nanowires. Such oscillations manifest in the nearly infinite Fr\"ohlich conductivity region where the undamped CDW flow forms in a finite electric current, and finally disappear after the oscillation index n reaches 1. A systematic investigation on the effect of temperature and magnetic field establishes that the observed electro-oscillations are a coherent quantum phenomenon. We discuss the possibilities of the physical mechanisms, including the formation of sliding-driven inherent Floquet sidebands. Our results introduce a new member in the family of quantum oscillations, and shed light on plausible avenues to explore novel physics and potential applications of coherent density-wave condensates., Comment: 33 pages, 17 figures

Majorana zero modes have been attracting considerable attention because of their prospective applications in fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. In recent years, some schemes have been proposed to detect and manipulate Majorana zero modes using superconducting qubits. However, manipulating and reading the Majorana zero modes must be kept in the time window of quasiparticle poisoning. In this work, we study the problem of quasiparticle poisoning in a split transmon qubit containing hybrid Josephson junctions involving Majorana zero modes. We show that Majorana coupling will cause parity mixing and 4{\pi} Josephson effect. In addition, we obtained the expression of qubit parameter-dependent parity switching rate and demonstrated that quasiparticle poisoning can be greatly suppressed by reducing E_J/E_C via qubit design.

We studied anomalous Josephson effect (AJE) in Josephson trijunctions fabricated on Bi$_2$Se$_3$, and found that the AJE in T-shaped trijunctions significantly alters the Majorana phase diagram of the trijunctions, when an in-plane magnetic field is applied parallel to two of the three single junctions. Such a phenomenon in topological insulator-based Josephson trijunction provides unambiguous evidence for the existence of AJE in the system, and might provide an additional knob for controlling the Majorana bound states in the Fu-Kane scheme of topological quantum computation., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

Many proposals in exploring topological quantum computation are based on superconducting quantum devices constructed on materials with strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC). For these devices, a full control on both the magnitude and the spatial distribution of the supercurrent would be highly demanded, but has been elusive up to now. We constructed proximity-type Josephson junction on nanoplates of Bi2O2Se, a new emerging semiconductor with strong SOC. Through electrical gating, we show that the supercurrent can be fully turned ON and OFF, and its real-space pathways can be configured either through the bulk or along the edges. Our work demonstrates Bi2O2Se as a promising platform for constructing multifunctional hybrid superconducting devices as well as for searching for topological superconductivity.

We report on the successful synthesis and low-temperature electron transport investigations of a new form of material - Bi2O2Se semiconducting nanowires. Gate-tunable 0- and $\pi$-h/e (h is the Planck constant and e the elementary charge) periodic resistance oscillations in longitudinal magnetic field were observed unexpectedly, demonstrating novel quasi-ballistic, phase-coherent surface states in Bi2O2Se nanowires. By reaching a very good agreement between the calculated density of states and the experimental data, we clarified the mechanism to be the one dimensional subbands formed along the circumference of the nanowire rather than the usually considered Aharonov-Bohm interference. A qualitative physical picture based on downward band bending associated with the complex band structure is proposed to describe the formation of the surface states., Comment: Corrected errors in calculations. Accepted by PRB

Recently, a contact-resistance-measurement method was developed to detect the minigap, hence the Andreev bound states (ABSs), in Josephson junctions constructed on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators (3D TIs). In this work, we further generalize that method to the circumstance with radio frequency (rf) irradiation. We find that with the increase of rf power, the measured minigap becomes broadened and extends to higher energies, in a way similar to the rf power dependence of the outer border of the Shapiro step region. We show that the corresponding data of contact resistance under rf irradiation can be well interpreted by using the resistively shunted Josephson junction model (RSJ model) and the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk (BTK) theory. Our findings could be useful when using the contact-resistance-measurement method to study the Majorana-related physics in topological insulator-based Josephson junctions under rf irradiation.

In search of fault-tolerant topological quantum computation (TQC), zero-bias conductance peak as a necessary signature of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) has been observed in a number of solid-state systems. Here, we present the signature of MZMs from a phase-sensitive experiment on Josephson trijunctions constructed on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators. We observed that the minigap at the center of the trijunction is protected to close over extended regions in phase space, supporting in principle the Majorana phase diagram proposed by Fu and Kane in 2008. Our study paves the way for further braiding MZMs and exploring TQC on a scalable two-dimensional platform., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

There have been continuous efforts in searching for unconventional superconductivity over the past five decades. Compared to the well-established d-wave superconductivity in cuprates, the existence of superconductivity with other high-angular-momentum pairing symmetries is less conclusive. Bi/Ni epitaxial bilayer is a potential unconventional superconductor with broken time reversal symmetry (TRS), for that it demonstrates superconductivity and ferromagnetism simultaneously at low temperatures. We employ a specially designed superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to detect, on the Bi/Ni bilayer, the orbital magnetic moment which is expected if the TRS is broken. An anomalous hysteretic magnetic response has been observed in the superconducting state, providing the evidence for the existence of chiral superconducting domains in the material., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

On the road of searching for Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in topological insulator-based Josephson junctions, a highly-sought signature is the protected full transparency of electron transport through the junctions due to the existence of the MZMs, associated with complete gap closing between the electron-like and hole-like Andreev bound states (ABSs). Here, we present direct experimental evidence of gap closing and full transparency in single Josephson junctions constructed on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulator (3D TI) Bi$_2$Te$_3$. Our results demonstrate that the 2D surface of 3D TIs provides a promising platform for hosting and manipulating MZMs., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures