Magnetic-field enhancement of superconductivity in ultranarrow wires

Current dependence of the negative magnetoresistance in superconducting NbN nanowires

Magnetoresistance measurements in amorphous NbN nanowires show that transport current affects their negative magnetoresistance (nMR) in a manner qualitatively similar to temperature. In particular, the current suppresses the nMR and, beyond a certain level it eliminates the effect altogether. As the temperature dependence of the nMR effect is more pronounced at low currents, similarly the current dependence of the effect is more pronounced at low temperatures. These results are discussed in terms of the phenomenological model which attributes the nMR to the interplay between the resistance originating from the rate of phase slips via the Josephson relation and the Ohmic contribution from quasiparticles charge imbalance that accompany fluctuations of the order parameter in the nanowire.

Superconducting Proximity in Intrinsic Magnetic Topological Insulator MnBi2Te4-NbN Hybrid Device Modulated by Coulomb Blockade Effect

The combination of nontrivial topology, magnetism, and superconductivity could offer the potential to realize exotic excitations of quasiparticles. MnBi₂Te₄, as an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator, may be a good platform to create Majorana fermions if coupled to an s-wave superconductor. Here, we report the transport properties of a MnBi₂Te₄-NbN hybrid device. This device exhibits clear Coulomb blockade oscillations. We observe a large zero-bias conductance peak that exists over considerable changes in gate voltage, magnetic field, and temperature, which is interpreted as a not fully developed supercurrent. The zero-bias peak shows a nonmonotonic evolution with a magnetic field and an abrupt π phase shift with changing temperature. Zero-energy bound states and a topological phase transition may exist in this hybrid system. Our results provide the first experimental investigation into the properties of the intrinsic magnetic topological insulator/superconductor hybrid structures modulated by the Coulomb blockade effect.

Quasiparticle Trapping at Vortices Producing Josephson Supercurrent Enhancement

The Josephson junction of a strong spin-orbit material under a magnetic field is a promising Majorana fermion candidate. Supercurrent enhancement by a magnetic field has been observed in the InAs nanowire Josephson junctions and assigned to a topological transition. In this work we observe a similar phenomenon but discuss the nontopological origin by considering the trapping of quasiparticles by vortices that penetrate the superconductor under a finite magnetic field. This assignment is supported by the observed hysteresis of the switching current when sweeping up and down the magnetic field. Our experiment shows the importance of quasiparticles in superconducting devices with a magnetic field, which can provide important insights for the design of qubits using superconductors.

Magnetic-Field-Induced Re-entrance of Superconductivity in Ta2PdS5 Nanostrips

The motion of Abrikosov vortices is the dominant origin of dissipation in type II superconductors subjected to a magnetic field, which leads to a finite electrical resistance. It is generally believed that the increase in the magnetic field results in the aggravation of energy dissipation through the increase in vortex density. Here, we show a distinctive re-entrance of the dissipationless state in quasi-one-dimensional superconducting Ta₂PdS₅ nanostrips. Utilizing magnetotransport measurements, we unveil a prominent magnetoresistance drop with the increase in the magnetic field below the superconducting transition temperature, manifesting itself as a giant re-entrance to the superconducting phase. Time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau calculations show that this is originated from the suppression of the vortex motion by the increased energy barrier on the edges. Interestingly, both our experiments and simulations demonstrate that this giant re-entrance of superconductivity occurs only in certain geometrical regimes because of the finite size of the vortex.

Magnetically-driven colossal supercurrent enhancement in InAs nanowire Josephson junctions

The Josephson effect is a fundamental quantum phenomenon where a dissipationless supercurrent is introduced in a weak link between two superconducting electrodes by Andreev reflections. The physical details and topology of the junction drastically modify the properties of the supercurrent and a strong enhancement of the critical supercurrent is expected to occur when the topology of the junction allows an emergence of Majorana bound states. Here we report charge transport measurements in mesoscopic Josephson junctions formed by InAs nanowires and Ti/Al superconducting leads. Our main observation is a colossal enhancement of the critical supercurrent induced by an external magnetic field applied perpendicular to the substrate. This striking and anomalous supercurrent enhancement cannot be described by any known conventional phenomenon of Josephson junctions. We consider these results in the context of topological superconductivity, and show that the observed critical supercurrent enhancement is compatible with a magnetic field-induced topological transition.

Physical details of a Josephson junction may drastically modify the properties of supercurrent. Here, the authors observe a colossal enhancement of the critical supercurrent in a Josephson junction subject to a perpendicular magnetic field, indicating topological phase transitions.

Negative Magnetoresistance in Amorphous Indium Oxide Wires

We study magneto-transport properties of several amorphous Indium oxide nanowires of different widths. The wires show superconducting transition at zero magnetic field, but, there exist a finite resistance at the lowest temperature. The R(T) broadening was explained by available phase slip models. At low field, and far below the superconducting critical temperature, the wires with diameter equal to or less than 100 nm, show negative magnetoresistance (nMR). The magnitude of nMR and the crossover field are found to be dependent on both temperature and the cross-sectional area. We find that this intriguing behavior originates from the interplay between two field dependent contributions.

Electronic Transport and Possible Superconductivity at Van Hove Singularities in Carbon Nanotubes

Van Hove singularities (VHSs) are a hallmark of reduced dimensionality, leading to a divergent density of states in one and two dimensions and predictions of new electronic properties when the Fermi energy is close to these divergences. In carbon nanotubes, VHSs mark the onset of new subbands. They are elusive in standard electronic transport characterization measurements because they do not typically appear as notable features and therefore their effect on the nanotube conductance is largely unexplored. Here we report conductance measurements of carbon nanotubes where VHSs are clearly revealed by interference patterns of the electronic wave functions, showing both a sharp increase of quantum capacitance, and a sharp reduction of energy level spacing, consistent with an upsurge of density of states. At VHSs, we also measure an anomalous increase of conductance below a temperature of about 30 K. We argue that this transport feature is consistent with the formation of Cooper pairs in the nanotube.

Superconductor-insulator transition in quasi-one-dimensional single-crystal Nb₂PdS₅ nanowires

Superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) in one-dimensional (1D) nanowires attracts great attention in the past decade and remains an open question since contrasting results were reported in nanowires with different morphologies (i.e., granular, polycrystalline, or amorphous) or environments. Nb2PdS5 is a recently discovered low-dimensional superconductor with typical quasi-1D chain structure. By decreasing the wire diameter in the range of 100-300 nm, we observed a clear SIT with a 1D transport character driven by both the cross-sectional area and external magnetic field. We also found that the upper critical magnetic field (Hc2) decreases with the reduction of nanowire cross-sectional area. The temperature dependence of the resistance below Tc can be described by the thermally activated phase slip (TAPS) theory without any signature of quantum phase slips (QPS). These findings demonstrated that the enhanced Coulomb interactions with the shrinkage of the wire diameter competes with the interchain Josephson-like coupling may play a crucial role on the SIT in quasi-1D system.

Large magnetoresistance of nickel-silicide nanowires: non-equilibrium heating of magnetically-coupled dangling bonds

We demonstrate large (>100%) time-dependent magnetoresistance in nickel-silicide nanowires and develop a thermodynamic model for this behavior. The model describes nonequilibrium heating of localized spins in an increasing magnetic field. We find a strong interaction between spins but no long-range magnetic order. The spins likely come from unpaired dangling bonds in the interfacial layers of the nanowires. The model indicates that although these bonds couple weakly to a thermal bath, they dominate the nanowire resistance.

Superconductor-insulator transition in long MoGe nanowires

The properties of one-dimensional superconducting wires depend on physical processes with different characteristic lengths. To identify the process dominant in the critical regime we have studied the transport properties of very narrow (9-20 nm) MoGe wires fabricated by advanced electron-beam lithography in a wide range of lengths, 1-25  μm. We observed that the wires undergo a superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) that is controlled by cross sectional area of a wire and possibly also by the width-to-thickness ratio. The mean-field critical temperature decreases exponentially with the inverse of the wire cross section. We observed that a qualitatively similar superconductor-insulator transition can be induced by an external magnetic field. Our results are not consistent with any currently known theory of the SIT. Some long superconducting MoGe nanowires can be identified as localized superconductors; namely, in these wires the one-electron localization length is much smaller than the length of a wire.

Dynamical conductivity at the dirty superconductor-metal quantum phase transition

We study the transport properties of ultrathin disordered nanowires in the neighborhood of the superconductor-metal quantum phase transition. To this end we combine numerical calculations with analytical strong-disorder renormalization group results. The quantum critical conductivity at zero temperature diverges logarithmically as a function of frequency. In the metallic phase, it obeys activated scaling associated with an infinite-randomness quantum critical point. We extend the scaling theory to higher dimensions and discuss implications for experiments.

Magnetic-field-induced superconducting state in Zn nanowires driven in the normal state by an electric current

Four-terminal resistance measurements have been carried out on Zn nanowires formed using electron-beam lithography. When driven resistive by current, these wires reenter the superconducting state upon application of small magnetic fields. The data are qualitatively different from those of previous experiments on superconducting nanowires, which revealed either negative magnetoresistance near T_{c} or high-magnetic-field-enhanced critical currents.

Spinlike susceptibility of metallic and insulating thin films at low temperature

Susceptibility measurements of patterned thin films at sub-K temperatures were carried out using a scanning SQUID microscope that can resolve signals corresponding to a few hundred Bohr magnetons. Several metallic and insulating thin films, even oxide-free Au films, show a paramagnetic response with a temperature dependence that indicates unpaired spins as the origin. The observed response exhibits a measurable out-of-phase component, which implies that these spins will create 1/f-like magnetic noise. The measured spin density is consistent with recent explanations of low frequency flux noise in SQUIDs and superconducting qubits in terms of spin fluctuations, and suggests that such unexpected spins may be even more ubiquitous than already indicated by earlier measurements. Our measurements set several constraints on the nature of these spins.

Dynamical characteristics of the giant magneto-resistance of epitaxial silicide nanowires

We study the dynamical properties of a hugely hysteretic magneto-resistance in epitaxially formed silicide nanowires, and propose a model for this remarkable effect in which it is attributed to the collective interactions among interfacial spins associated with dangling bonds. According to our model, the dynamic character of this effect reflects a competitive tendency for the interfacial spins to align in different collective configurations (random, ordered, and multi-domain). Our work thus provides a dramatic demonstration of how the collective interactions among interfacial spins can modify the properties of nonmagnetic nanostructures.

Determination of the superconductor-insulator phase diagram for one-dimensional wires

We establish the superconductor-insulator phase diagram for quasi-one-dimensional wires by measuring a large set of MoGe nanowires. This diagram is roughly consistent with the Chakravarty-Schmid-Bulgadaev phase boundary, namely, with the critical resistance being equal to RQ=h/4e2. Deviations from this boundary for a small fraction of the samples prompt us to suggest an alternative phase diagram, which matches the data exactly. Transport properties of wires in the superconducting phase are dominated by phase slips, whereas insulating nanowires exhibit a weak Coulomb blockade behavior.

Investigation of superconductivity in electrochemically fabricated AuSn nanowires

We have fabricated intermetallic AuSn nanowires by electrochemical deposition in porous polycarbonate membranes. By controlling the deposition parameters, nanowires of a single intermetallic phase, namely AuSn, can be fabricated. AuSn nanowires are found to be crystalline and fairly resistant to oxidation. Electrical transport measurements on arrays of nanowires showed a superconducting transition temperature, T(c)∼1.5 K. In addition, four-probe measurements were made on individual freestanding nanowires with electrodes formed by a focused ion beam (FIB). Results from the two sets of measurements are found to be in close agreement.

Infinite randomness fixed point of the superconductor-metal quantum phase transition

We examine the influence of quenched disorder on the superconductor-metal transition, as described by a theory of overdamped Cooper pairs which repel each other. The self-consistent pairing eigenmodes of a quasi-one-dimensional wire are determined numerically. Our results support the recent proposal by Hoyos et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 230601 (2007)10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.230601] that the transition is characterized by the same strong-disorder fixed point describing the onset of ferromagnetism in the random quantum Ising chain in a transverse field.

Magnetism in SQUIDs at millikelvin temperatures

We have characterized the temperature dependence of the flux threading dc SQUIDs cooled to millikelvin temperatures. The flux increases as 1/T as temperature is lowered; moreover, the flux change is proportional to the density of trapped vortices. The data are compatible with the thermal polarization of surface spins in the trapped fields of the vortices. In the absence of trapped flux, we observe evidence of spin-glass freezing at low temperature. These results suggest an explanation for the universal 1/f flux noise in SQUIDs and superconducting qubits.

Extracting superconducting single-crystal Nb mesowires out of NbSe2 by a crystal-lattice collapse method

The author reports a conceptually new approach to superconducting niobium (Nb) mesowires in high yields from layered compounds (NbSe2) by solid-state pyrolysis. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected-area electron diffraction demonstrate that the mesowires are single crystalline, grow along the [001] direction, and have specific facets. Unlike the previous electrodeposition routes within templates, a possible vapor-solid interaction mechanism was first proposed for component-selective epitaxial growth of one-dimensional Nb lattices where vapor-assisted collapse of NbSe2 crystal structure occurs through disposing of Se vapor phase matrix at enhanced temperatures.

Controlled fabrication and electrical properties of long quasi-one-dimensional superconducting nanowire arrays

We report a general method for reliably fabricating quasi-one-dimensional superconducting nanowire arrays, with good control over nanowire cross section and length, and with full compatibility with device processing methods. We investigate Nb nanowires with individual nanowire cross sectional areas that range from bulklike to 10 x 11 nm, and with lengths from 1 to 100 microm. Nanowire size effects are systematically studied. In particular, a comprehensive investigation of influence of nanowire length on superconductivity is reported for the first time. All results are interpreted within the context of phase-slip models.