Deutsch Intern
Experimentelle Physik II

SFB Extra Seminar

Hybrid Josephson junctions with semiconductors
Date: 05/22/2019, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Category: Seminar
Location: Hubland Süd, Geb. P1 (Physik), SE 2
Organizer: SFB 1170 ToCoTronics
Speaker: Dr. Alexandre Assouline - CEA-Saclay

Josephson junctions are the building blocks of superconducting electronics. They are made of two superconductors separated by an insulating barrier. I will present two experiments where the insulating barrier is replaced by a semiconductor. In the first one [1], we study nanowires where the number of electrons can be controlled, one by one, until a metal-insulator transition is induced. Across this transition, we observed the evolution of the Andreev spectrum that leads to the Josephson effect. In the second experiment [2], we study the Josephson effect in thin films where the electron motion is coupled to its spin. This spin-orbit interaction plays a key role in the discovery of new topological phases of matter. I will show that spin-orbit coupling can be probed by phase sensitive measurements of the Josephson current.

[1] A. Assouline, et al. “Shiba bound states across the mobility edge in doped InAs nanowires”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 097701 (2017).

[2] A. Assouline et al. “Spin-Orbit induced phase-shift in Bi2Se3 Josephson junctions”, Nature Communications 10, 126 (2019).