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Scalable Quantum Integrated Circuits on Superconducting Two-Dimensional Electron Gas Platform
Published on: August 2, 2019
Crossover from Ising- to Rashba-type superconductivity in epitaxial Bi2Se3/monolayer NbSe2 heterostructures
Hemian Yi1, Lun-Hui Hu1, Yuanxi Wang1,2
1Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
Abstract:
A topological insulator (TI) interfaced with an s-wave superconductor has been predicted to host topological superconductivity. Although the growth of epitaxial TI films on s-wave superconductors has been achieved by molecular-beam epitaxy, it remains an outstanding challenge for synthesizing atomically thin TI/superconductor heterostructures, which are critical for engineering the topological superconducting phase. Here we used molecular-beam epitaxy to grow Bi2Se3 films with a controlled thickness on monolayer NbSe2 and performed in situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and ex situ magnetotransport measurements on these heterostructures. We found that the emergence of Rashba-type bulk quantum-well bands and spin-non-degenerate surface states coincides with a marked suppression of the in-plane upper critical magnetic field of the superconductivity in Bi2Se3/monolayer NbSe2 heterostructures. This is a signature of a crossover from Ising- to Rashba-type superconducting pairings, induced by altering the Bi2Se3 film thickness. Our work opens a route for exploring a robust topological superconducting phase in TI/Ising superconductor heterostructures.
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