Granular aluminum induced superconductivity in germanium for hole spin-based hybrid devices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that granular aluminum on germanium can induce robust superconductivity resilient to magnetic fields, enabling advanced hole spin-based hybrid quantum devices.

Contribution

It introduces a method to induce resilient superconductivity in germanium using granular aluminum, overcoming limitations of small in-plane g-factors.

Findings

Induced a hard superconducting gap of 305 μeV in germanium.

Achieved magnetic-field resilience allowing Zeeman splitting beyond 50 μeV.

Demonstrated g-tensor tunability and signatures of hole physics.

Abstract

In superconductor-semiconductor hybrid structures, superconductivity and spin polarization are competing effects because magnetic fields break Cooper pairs. They can be combined using thin films and in-plane magnetic fields, an approach that enabled the pursuit of Majorana zero modes, Kitaev chains, and Andreev spin qubits (ASQs), but remains challenging for materials with small in-plane g-factors. Here we show that granular aluminum (grAl), composed of nanometer-scale aluminum grains embedded in an amorphous oxide matrix, can overcome this limitation. By depositing grAl on Ge/SiGe heterostructures, we induce a hard superconducting gap with BCS peaks at 305 $\mu$eV and magnetic-field resilience for both the in-plane and out-of-plane directions, allowing Zeeman splitting of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states beyond 50 $\mu$eV (12 GHz). Leveraging this robustness, we reveal signatures of hole physics and demonstrate g-tensor tunability.