Evidence for chiral supercurrent in quantum Hall Josephson junctions

TL;DR

This paper provides experimental evidence of a chiral supercurrent in quantum Hall Josephson junctions, demonstrating a $2\phi_0$ flux periodicity and highlighting the importance of junction geometry for supercurrent measurement.

Contribution

It presents the first clear experimental observation of a chiral supercurrent in quantum Hall systems, confirming theoretical predictions and advancing the development of topological quantum devices.

Findings

Reproducible $2\phi_0$-periodic supercurrent oscillations observed.

Chiral supercurrent carried by QH edge channels up to 8 Tesla.

Reducing superconductor/normal interface length enhances supercurrent measurement.

Abstract

Hybridizing superconductivity with the quantum Hall (QH) effects has major potential for designing novel circuits capable of inducing and manipulating non-Abelian states for topological quantum computation. However, despite recent experimental progress towards this hybridization, concrete evidence for a chiral QH Josephson junction -- the elemental building block for coherent superconducting-QH circuits -- is still lacking. Its expected signature is an unusual chiral supercurrent flowing in QH edge channels, which oscillates with a specific $2\phi_0$ magnetic flux periodicity ($\phi_0=h/2e$ is the superconducting flux quantum, $h$ the Planck constant and $e$ the electron charge). Here, we show that ultra-narrow Josephson junctions defined in encapsulated graphene nanoribbons exhibit such a chiral supercurrent, visible up to 8 teslas, and carried by the spin-degenerate edge channel of the QH plateau of resistance $h/2e^2\simeq 12.9$ k$\Omega$. We observe reproducible $2\phi_0$-periodic oscillation of the supercurrent, which emerges at constant filling factor when the area of the loop formed by the QH edge channel is constant, within a magnetic-length correction that we resolve in the data. Furthermore, by varying the junction geometry, we show that reducing the superconductor/normal interface length is pivotal to obtain a measurable supercurrent on QH plateaus, in agreement with theories predicting dephasing along the superconducting interface. Our findings mark a critical milestone along the path to explore correlated and fractional QH-based superconducting devices that should host non-Abelian Majorana and parafermion zero modes.