Epitaxy of Semiconductor-Superconductor nanowires

Understand

Controlling the properties of semiconductor/metal interfaces is a powerful method for designing functionality and improving the performance of electrical devices.

• Recently semiconductor/superconductor hybrids have appeared as an important example where the atomic scale uniformity of the interface plays a key role for the quality of the induced superconducting gap.
• Here we present epitaxial growth of semiconductor-metal core-shell nanowires by molecular beam epitaxy, a method that provides a conceptually new route to controlled electrical contacting of nanostructures and for designing devices for specialized applications such as topological and gate-controlled superconducting electronics.
• Our materials of choice, InAs/Al, are grown with epitaxially matched single plane interfaces, and alternative semiconductor/metal combinations allowing epitaxial interface matching in nanowires are discussed.