Electrostatic field-driven supercurrent suppression in ionic-gated metallic Josephson nanotransistors

Abstract

Recent experiments have shown the possibility of tuning the transport properties of metallic nanosized superconductors through a gate voltage. These results renewed the longstanding debate on the interaction between electrostatic fields and superconductivity. Indeed, different works suggested competing mechanisms as the cause of the effect: an unconventional electric field-effect or quasiparticle injection. Here, we provide conclusive evidence for the electrostatic-field-driven control of the supercurrent in metallic nanosized superconductors, by realizing ionic-gated superconducting field-effect nanotransistors (ISFETs) where electron injection is impossible. Our Nb ISFETs show giant suppression of the superconducting critical current of up to 45%. Moreover, the bipolar supercurrent suppression observed in different ISFETs, together with invariant critical temperature and normal-state resistance, also excludes conventional charge accumulation/depletion. Therefore, the microscopic explanation of this effect calls upon a novel theory able to describe the nontrivial interaction of static electric fields with conventional superconductivity.

9 pages, 6 figures

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• Gate control of superconducting current: Mechanisms, parameters and technological potential
• Effects of fabrication routes and material parameters on the control of superconducting currents by gate voltage
• Gate-Tunable Critical Current of the Three-Dimensional Niobium Nano-Bridge Josephson Junction
• Back-action supercurrent diodes
• Microscopic theory of supercurrent suppression by gate-controlled surface depairing
• Surface superconductor-insulator transition induced by an electric field
• High orbital-moment Cooper pairs by crystalline symmetry breaking
• Gate-controlled supercurrent effect in dry-etched Dayem bridges of non-centrosymmetric niobium rhenium
• Surface superconductor-insulator transition: Reduction of the critical electric field by Hartree-Fock potential
• Tailoring of the interference-induced surface superconductivity by an applied electric field
• Reversible Tuning of Superconductivity in Ion-Gated NbN Ultrathin Films by Self-Encapsulation with a High-$\kappa$ Dielectric Layer
• Multimode operation of a superconducting nanowire switch in the nanosecond regime