Superconducting proximity effect in epitaxial Al-InAs heterostructures

TL;DR

This study investigates the superconducting proximity effect in epitaxial Al-InAs heterostructures, revealing high transparency interfaces and significant supercurrent, especially in high-mobility samples, with implications for quantum device applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates that high-mobility epitaxial Al-InAs junctions exhibit high transparency and large supercurrents, highlighting the importance of mobility for interface quality in superconducting heterostructures.

Findings

High supercurrent and $I_cR_N$ product observed in epitaxial Al-InAs junctions.

High-mobility samples show substantial excess current independent of gate voltage.

Low-mobility samples have negligible excess current, indicating lower interface transparency.

Abstract

Semiconductor-based Josephson junctions provide a platform for studying proximity effect due to the possibility of tuning junction properties by gate voltage and large-scale fabrication of complex Josephson circuits. Recently Josephson junctions using InAs weak link with epitaxial aluminum contact have improved the product of normal resistance and critical current, $I_cR_N$, in addition to fabrication process reliability. Here we study similar devices with epitaxial contact and find large supercurrent and substantial product of $I_cR_N$ in our junctions. However we find a striking difference when we compare these samples with higher mobility samples in terms of product of excess current and normal resistance, $I_{ex}R_N$. The excess current is negligible in lower mobility devices while it is substantial and independent of gate voltage and junction length in high mobility samples. This indicates that even though both sample types have epitaxial contacts only the high-mobility one has a high transparency interface. In the high mobility short junctions, we observe values of $I_cR_N/\Delta \sim 2.2$ and $I_{ex}R_N/\Delta \sim 1.5$ in semiconductor weak links.