Interplay between topological insulators and superconductors

Abstract

Topological insulators are insulating in the bulk but possess metallic surface states protected by time-reversal symmetry. Here, we report a detailed electronic transport study in high quality Bi2Se3 topological insulator thin films contacted by superconducting (In, Al and W) electrodes. The resistance of the film shows an abrupt and significant upturn when the electrodes become superconducting. In turn, the Bi2Se3 film strongly weakens the superconductivity of the electrodes, significantly reducing both their transition temperatures and critical fields. A possible interpretation of these results is that the superconducting electrodes are accessing the surface states and the experimental results are the consequence of the interplay between the Cooper pairs of the electrodes and the spin polarized current of the surface states in Bi2Se3.

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Cited by in corpus (19)

• Search for Majorana fermions in superconductors
• Unconventional Josephson Effect in Hybrid Superconductor-Topological Insulator Devices
• Stability of Majorana Fermions in Proximity-Coupled Topological Insulator Nanowires
• Molecular Beam Epitaxial Growth of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 Topological Insulators on GaAs (111) Substrates: A Potential Route to Fabricate Topological Insulator p-n Junction
• Current induced anisotropic magnetoresistance in topological insulator films
• Topological Crystalline Insulator Nanostructures
• Dynamical Gate Tunable Supercurrents in Topological Josephson Junctions
• Two-dimensional heavy fermions on the strongly correlated boundaries of Kondo topological insulators
• Transport Properties of Topological Insulators Films and Nanowires
• Two-band superconductivity of bulk and surface states in Ag thin films on Nb
• Josephson effect in normal and ferromagnetic topological insulator planar, step and edge junctions
• Quantum transport in topological insulator hybrid structures -- A combination of topological insulator and superconductor
• Interaction proximity effect at the interface between a superconductor and a topological insulator quantum well
• Novel Majorana mode and magnetoresistance in ferromagnetic superconducting topological insulator
• Pairing instabilities in topological insulator quantum wells
• Unconventional Josephson junctions with topological Kondo insulator weak links
• Modeling Tunneling for the Unconventional Superconducting Proximity Effect
• Studies on proximity effect in Mo/Bi1.95Sb0.05Se3 hybrid structure
• Novel voltage signal at proximity effect induced superconducting transition temperature in gold nanowires