Fermi-arc supercurrent oscillations in Dirac semimetal Josephson junctions.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32123180.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-15010-8 and PMC identifier 7051961.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
One prominent hallmark of topological semimetals is the existence of unusual topological surface states known as Fermi arcs. Nevertheless, the Fermi-arc superconductivity remains elusive. Here, we report the critical current oscillations from surface Fermi arcs in Nb-Dirac semimetal Cd3As2-Nb Josephson junctions. The supercurrent from bulk states are suppressed under an in-plane magnetic field ~0.1 T, while the supercurrent from the topological surface states survives up to 0.5 T. Contrary to the minimum normal-state conductance, the Fermi-arc carried supercurrent shows a maximum critical value near the Dirac point, which is consistent with the fact that the Fermi arcs have maximum density of state at the Dirac point. Moreover, the critical current exhibits periodic oscillations with a parallel magnetic field, which is well understood by considering the in-plane orbital effect from the surface states. Our results suggest the Dirac semimetal combined with superconductivity should be promising for topological quantum devices.