TY  - JOUR
A1  - Oostinga, Jeroen B.
A1  - Maier, Luis
A1  - Schüffelgen, Peter
A1  - Knott, Daniel
A1  - Ames, Christopher
A1  - Brüne, Christoph
A1  - Tkachov, Grigory
A1  - Buhmann, Hartmut
A1  - Molenkamp, Laurens W.
T1  - Josephson Supercurrent through the Topological Surface States of Strained Bulk HgTe
JF  - Physical Review X
N2  - Strained bulk HgTe is a three-dimensional topological insulator, whose surface electrons have a high mobility (~ 30 000 cm\(^2\)=Vs), while its bulk is effectively free of mobile charge carriers. These properties enable a study of transport through its unconventional surface states without being hindered by a parallel bulk conductance. Here, we show transport experiments on HgTe-based Josephson junctions to investigate the appearance of the predicted Majorana states at the interface between a topological insulator and a superconductor. Interestingly, we observe a dissipationless supercurrent flow through the topological surface states of HgTe. The current-voltage characteristics are hysteretic at temperatures below 1 K, with critical supercurrents of several microamperes. Moreover, we observe a magnetic-field-induced Fraunhofer pattern of the critical supercurrent, indicating a dominant \(2\pi\)-periodic Josephson effect in the unconventional surface states. Our results show that strained bulk HgTe is a promising material system to get a better understanding of the Josephson effect in topological surface states, and to search for the manifestation of zero-energy Majorana states in transport experiments.
KW  - topological insulators
KW  - mesoscopics
KW  - superconductivity
Y1  - 2013
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-129834
VL  - 3
IS  - 021007
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ma, Eric Yue
A1  - Calvo, M. Reyes
A1  - Wang, Jing
A1  - Lian, Biao
A1  - Mühlbauer, Mathias
A1  - Brüne, Christoph
A1  - Cui, Yong-Tao
A1  - Lai, Keji
A1  - Kundhikanjana, Worasom
A1  - Yang, Yongliang
A1  - Baenninger, Matthias
A1  - König, Markus
A1  - Ames, Christopher
A1  - Buhmann, Hartmut
A1  - Leubner, Philipp
A1  - Molenkamp, Laurens W.
A1  - Zhang, Shou-Cheng
A1  - Goldhaber-Gordon, David
A1  - Kelly, Michael A.
A1  - Shen, Zhi-Xun
T1  - Unexpected edge conduction in mercury telluride quantum wells under broken time-reversal symmetry
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - The realization of quantum spin Hall effect in HgTe quantum wells is considered a milestone in the discovery of topological insulators. Quantum spin Hall states are predicted to allow current flow at the edges of an insulating bulk, as demonstrated in various experiments. A key prediction yet to be experimentally verified is the breakdown of the edge conduction under broken time-reversal symmetry. Here we first establish a systematic framework for the magnetic field dependence of electrostatically gated quantum spin Hall devices. We then study edge conduction of an inverted quantum well device under broken time-reversal symmetry using microwave impedance microscopy, and compare our findings to a noninverted device. At zero magnetic field, only the inverted device shows clear edge conduction in its local conductivity profile, consistent with theory. Surprisingly, the edge conduction persists up to 9 T with little change. This indicates physics beyond simple quantum spin Hall model, including material-specific properties and possibly many-body effects.
KW  - topological insulators
KW  - surface states
KW  - HgTe
KW  - Hg1-xCdxTe
KW  - vacancies
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-143185
VL  - 6
IS  - 7252
ER  -