Evidence for 4e charge of Cooper quartets in a biased multi-terminal graphene-based Josephson junction

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the experimental observation of 4e charge Cooper quartets in a multi-terminal graphene Josephson junction, revealing complex quantum interference and non-equilibrium effects with potential applications in topological materials.

Contribution

It provides the first evidence of 4e charge Cooper quartets in a tunable multi-terminal graphene Josephson junction, highlighting their interference and non-equilibrium behaviors.

Findings

Critical quartet supercurrent exhibits magneto-oscillation with 4e charge.

Observation of non-monotonic bias dependence due to Landau-Zener transitions.

Demonstration of coherent non-equilibrium Cooper quartet Andreev bound states.

Abstract

In a Josephson junction (JJ), Cooper pairs are transported via Andreev bound states (ABSs) between superconductors. The ABSs in the weak link of multi-terminal (MT) JJs can coherently hybridize two Cooper pairs among different superconducting electrodes, resulting in the Cooper quartet (CQ) involving four fermions entanglement. The energy spectrum of these CQ-ABS can be controlled by biasing MT-JJs due to the AC Josephson effect. Here, using gate tunable four-terminal graphene JJs complemented with a flux loop, we construct CQs with a tunable spectrum. The critical quartet supercurrent exhibits magneto-oscillation associated with a charge of 4e; thereby presenting the evidence for interference between entangled CQ-ABS. At a finite bias voltage, we find the DC quartet supercurrent shows non-monotonic bias dependent behavior, attributed to Landau-Zener transitions between different Floquet bands. Our experimental demonstration of coherent non-equilibrium CQ-ABS sets a path for design of artificial topological materials based on MT-JJs.