Spin-Mixing Enhanced Proximity Effect in Aluminum-Based Superconductor–Semiconductor Hybrids

In superconducting quantum circuits, aluminum is one of the most widely used materials. It is currently also the superconductor of choice for the development of topological qubits. However, aluminum-based devices suffer from poor magnetic field compatibility. Herein, this limitation is resolved by showing that adatoms of heavy elements (e.g.,...

Single-Shot Fabrication of Semiconducting–Superconducting Nanowire Devices

Semiconducting–superconducting hybrids are vital components for the realization of high-performance nanoscale devices. In particular, semiconducting–superconducting nanowires attract widespread interest owing to the possible presence of non-abelian Majorana zero modes, which are quasiparticles that hold promise for topological quantum...

Selectivity Map for Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Advanced III-V Quantum Nanowire Networks

Selective-area growth is a promising technique for enabling of the fabrication of the scalable III-V nanowire networks required to test proposals for Majorana-based quantum computing devices. However, the contours of the growth parameter window resulting in selective growth remain undefined. Herein, we present a set of experimental techniques...

Quantized Majorana conductance

Majorana zero-modes - a type of localized quasiparticle - hold great promise for topological quantum computing. Tunnelling spectroscopy in electrical transport is the primary tool for identifying the presence of Majorana zero-modes, for instance as a zero-bias peak in differential conductance. The height of the Majorana zero-bias peak is...

Electric field tunable superconductor-semiconductor coupling in Majorana nanowires

We study the effect of external electric fields on superconductor-semiconductor coupling by measuring the electron transport in InSb semiconductor nanowires coupled to an epitaxially grown Al superconductor. We find that the gate voltage induced electric fields can greatly modify the coupling strength, which has consequences for the proximity...

Spin-Orbit Interaction and Induced Superconductivity in a One-Dimensional Hole Gas

Low dimensional semiconducting structures with strong spin-orbit interaction (SOI) and induced superconductivity attracted great interest in the search for topological superconductors. Both the strong SOI and hard superconducting gap are directly related to the topological protection of the predicted Majorana bound states. Here we explore the...

Observation of Conductance Quantization in InSb Nanowire Networks

Majorana zero modes (MZMs) are prime candidates for robust topological quantum bits, holding a great promise for quantum computing. Semiconducting nanowires with strong spin orbit coupling offer a promising platform to harness one-dimensional electron transport for Majorana physics. Demonstrating the topological nature of MZMs relies on...

Conductance through a helical state in an Indium antimonide nanowire

The motion of an electron and its spin are generally not coupled. However in a one-dimensional material with strong spin-orbit interaction (SOI) a helical state may emerge at finite magnetic fields, where electrons of opposite spin will have opposite momentum. The existence of this helical state has applications for spin filtering and cooper...

Hard Superconducting Gap in InSb Nanowires

Topological superconductivity is a state of matter that can host Majorana modes, the building blocks of a topological quantum computer. Many experimental platforms predicted to show such a topological state rely on proximity-induced superconductivity. However, accessing the topological properties requires an induced hard superconducting gap,...

Spontaneous emission control of single quantum dots in bottom-up nanowire waveguides

Nanowire waveguides with controlled shape are promising for engineering the collection efficiency of quantum light sources. We investigate the exciton lifetime in individual InAsP quantum dots, perfectly positioned on-axis of InP nanowire waveguides. We demonstrate control over the quantum dot spontaneous emission by varying the nanowire...

Single quantum dot nanowire photodetectors

We report InP nanowire photodetectors with a single InAsP quantum dot as light absorbing element. With excitation above the InP band gap, the nanowire photodetectors are efficient (quantum efficiency of 4%). Under resonant excitation of the quantum dot, the photocurrent amplitude depends on the linear polarization direction of the incident light...

Surround-gated vertical nanowire quantum dots

We report voltage dependent photoluminescence experiments on single indium arsenide phosphide (InAsP) quantum dots embedded in vertical surround-gated indium phosphide (InP) nanowires. We show that by tuning the gate voltage, we can access different quantum dot charge states. We study the anisotropic exchange splitting by polarization analysis,...

Quantum optics with single nanowire quantum dots

In this paper we present our recent developments in control and manipulation of individual spins and photons in a single nanowire quantum dot. Specific examples include demonstration of optical excitation of single spin states, charge tunable quantum devices and single photon sources. We will also discuss our recent discovery of a new type of...

Diameter-dependent conductance of InAs nanowires

Electrical conductance through InAs nanowires is relevant for electronic applications as well as for fundamental quantum experiments. Here, we employ nominally undoped, slightly tapered InAs nanowires to study the diameter dependence of their conductance. By contacting multiple sections of each wire, we can study the diameter dependence within...

Single-electron tunneling in InP nanowires

We report on the fabrication and electrical characterization of field-effect devices based on wire-shaped InP crystals grown from Au catalyst particles by a vapor–liquid–solid process. Our InP wires are n-type doped with diameters in the 40–55-nm range and lengths of several micrometers. After being deposited on an oxidized Si substrate, wires...