TY - JOUR
T1 - Supercurrent Interference in Few-Mode Nanowire Josephson Junctions
AU - Zuo, Kun
AU - Mourik, Vincent
AU - Szombati, Daniel B.
AU - Nijholt, Bas
AU - Van Woerkom, David J.
AU - Geresdi, Attila
AU - Chen, Jun
AU - Ostroukh, Viacheslav P.
AU - Akhmerov, Anton R.
AU - Plissard, Sebastién R.
AU - Car, Diana
AU - Bakkers, Erik P.A.M.
AU - Pikulin, Dmitry I.
AU - Kouwenhoven, Leo P.
AU - Frolov, Sergey M.
PY - 2017/11/3
Y1 - 2017/11/3
N2 - Junctions created by coupling two superconductors via a semiconductor nanowire in the presence of high magnetic fields are the basis for the potential detection, fusion, and braiding of Majorana bound states. We study NbTiN/InSb nanowire/NbTiN Josephson junctions and find that the dependence of the critical current on the magnetic field exhibits gate-tunable nodes. This is in contrast with a well-known Fraunhofer effect, under which critical current nodes form a regular pattern with a period fixed by the junction area. Based on a realistic numerical model we conclude that the Zeeman effect induced by the magnetic field and the spin-orbit interaction in the nanowire are insufficient to explain the observed evolution of the Josephson effect. We find the interference between the few occupied one-dimensional modes in the nanowire to be the dominant mechanism responsible for the critical current behavior. We also report a strong suppression of critical currents at finite magnetic fields that should be taken into account when designing circuits based on Majorana bound states.
AB - Junctions created by coupling two superconductors via a semiconductor nanowire in the presence of high magnetic fields are the basis for the potential detection, fusion, and braiding of Majorana bound states. We study NbTiN/InSb nanowire/NbTiN Josephson junctions and find that the dependence of the critical current on the magnetic field exhibits gate-tunable nodes. This is in contrast with a well-known Fraunhofer effect, under which critical current nodes form a regular pattern with a period fixed by the junction area. Based on a realistic numerical model we conclude that the Zeeman effect induced by the magnetic field and the spin-orbit interaction in the nanowire are insufficient to explain the observed evolution of the Josephson effect. We find the interference between the few occupied one-dimensional modes in the nanowire to be the dominant mechanism responsible for the critical current behavior. We also report a strong suppression of critical currents at finite magnetic fields that should be taken into account when designing circuits based on Majorana bound states.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85032810285&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid: fd629dcb-ccd5-40f4-85c6-e70c321f1bb3
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.187704
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.187704
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85032810285
VL - 119
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
SN - 0031-9007
IS - 18
M1 - 187704
ER -