Gate-Controlled Supercurrent in Epitaxial Al/InAs Nanowires.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34726405.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c03493 and PMC identifier 8631737.
- 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
Gate-controlled supercurrent (GCS) in superconducting nanobridges has recently attracted attention as a means to create superconducting switches. Despite the clear advantages for applications, the microscopic mechanism of this effect is still under debate. In this work, we realize GCS for the first time in a highly crystalline superconductor epitaxially grown on an InAs nanowire. We show that the supercurrent in the epitaxial Al layer can be switched to the normal state by applying ≃±23 V on a bottom gate insulated from the nanowire by a crystalline hBN layer. Our extensive study of the temperature and magnetic field dependencies suggests that the electric field is unlikely to be the origin of GCS in our device. Though hot electron injection alone cannot explain our experimental findings, a very recent non-equilibrium phonons based picture is compatible with most of our results.